Part 01 - Moby Dick Audiobook by Herman Melville (Chs 001-009)

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ETYMOLOGY and EXTRACTS
ETYMOLOGY.

(Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a
Grammar School)

The pale Usher--threadbare in coat, heart,
body, and brain; I see him now.

He was ever dusting his old lexicons and
grammars, with a queer handkerchief,

mockingly embellished with all the gay
flags of all the known nations of the

world.

He loved to dust his old grammars; it
somehow mildly reminded him of his

mortality.

"While you take in hand to school others,
and to teach them by what name a whale-fish

is to be called in our tongue leaving out,
through ignorance, the letter H, which

almost alone maketh the signification of

the word, you deliver that which is not
true."

--HACKLUYT

"WHALE....Sw. and Dan. HVAL. This animal is
named from roundness or rolling; for in

Dan. HVALT is arched or vaulted."
--WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY

"WHALE....It is more immediately from the
Dut. and Ger. WALLEN; A.S. WALW-IAN, to

roll, to wallow."
--RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY

KETOS,GREEK.
CETUS,LATIN.

WHOEL,ANGLO-SAXON.
HVALT,DANISH.

WAL,DUTCH.
HWAL,SWEDISH.

WHALE,ICELANDIC.
WHALE,ENGLISH.

BALEINE,FRENCH.
BALLENA,SPANISH.

PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE,FEGEE.
PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE,ERROMANGOAN.

EXTRACTS (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian).

It will be seen that this mere painstaking
burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a

Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the
long Vaticans and street-stalls of the

earth, picking up whatever random allusions

to whales he could anyways find in any book
whatsoever, sacred or profane.

Therefore you must not, in every case at
least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale

statements, however authentic, in these
extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.

Far from it.

As touching the ancient authors generally,
as well as the poets here appearing, these

extracts are solely valuable or
entertaining, as affording a glancing

bird's eye view of what has been

promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and
sung of Leviathan, by many nations and

generations, including our own.
So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub,

whose commentator I am.

Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow
tribe which no wine of this world will ever

warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would
be too rosy-strong; but with whom one

sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-

devilish, too; and grow convivial upon
tears; and say to them bluntly, with full

eyes and empty glasses, and in not
altogether unpleasant sadness--Give it up,

Sub-Subs!

For by how much the more pains ye take to
please the world, by so much the more shall

ye for ever go thankless!
Would that I could clear out Hampton Court

and the Tuileries for ye!

But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to
the royal-mast with your hearts; for your

friends who have gone before are clearing
out the seven-storied heavens, and making

refugees of long-pampered Gabriel, Michael,
and Raphael, against your coming.

Here ye strike but splintered hearts
together--there, ye shall strike

unsplinterable glasses!

EXTRACTS.
"And God created great whales."

--GENESIS.

"Leviathan maketh a path to shine after
him; One would think the deep to be hoary."

--JOB.

"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to
swallow up Jonah."

--JONAH.

"There go the ships; there is that
Leviathan whom thou hast made to play

therein."
--PSALMS.

"In that day, the Lord with his sore, and
great, and strong sword, shall punish

Leviathan the piercing serpent, even
Leviathan that crooked serpent; and he

shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

--ISAIAH

"And what thing soever besides cometh
within the chaos of this monster's mouth,

be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes
all incontinently that foul great swallow

of his, and perisheth in the bottomless
gulf of his paunch."

--HOLLAND'S PLUTARCH'S MORALS.

"The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the
biggest fishes that are: among which the

Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take
up as much in length as four acres or

arpens of land."

--HOLLAND'S PLINY.

"Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the
sea, when about sunrise a great many Whales

and other monsters of the sea, appeared.
Among the former, one was of a most

monstrous size....

This came towards us, open-mouthed, raising
the waves on all sides, and beating the sea

before him into a foam."
--TOOKE'S LUCIAN.

"THE TRUE HISTORY."

"He visited this country also with a view
of catching horse-whales, which had bones

of very great value for their teeth, of
which he brought some to the king....

The best whales were catched in his own
country, of which some were forty-eight,

some fifty yards long.
He said that he was one of six who had

killed sixty in two days."

--OTHER OR OTHER'S VERBAL NARRATIVE TAKEN
DOWN FROM HIS MOUTH BY KING ALFRED, A.D.

890.

"And whereas all the other things, whether
beast or vessel, that enter into the

dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's)
mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed

up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in
great security, and there sleeps."

--MONTAIGNE.
--APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND SEBOND.

"Let us fly, let us fly!
Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan

described by the noble prophet Moses in the
life of patient Job."

--RABELAIS.

"This whale's liver was two cartloads."
--STOWE'S ANNALS.

"The great Leviathan that maketh the seas
to seethe like boiling pan."

--LORD BACON'S VERSION OF THE PSALMS.

"Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale
or ork we have received nothing certain.

They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an
incredible quantity of oil will be

extracted out of one whale."

--IBID.
"HISTORY OF LIFE AND DEATH."

"The sovereignest thing on earth is
parmacetti for an inward bruise."

--KING HENRY.

"Very like a whale."
--HAMLET.

"Which to secure, no skill of leach's art
Mote him availle, but to returne againe

To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart

Dinting his breast,
had bred his restless paine,

Like as the wounded whale
to shore flies thro' the maine."

--THE FAERIE QUEEN.

"Immense as whales, the motion of whose
vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble

the ocean til it boil."
--SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.

PREFACE TO GONDIBERT.

"What spermacetti is, men might justly
doubt, since the learned Hosmannus in his

work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio
quid sit."

--SIR T. BROWNE. OF SPERMA CETI AND THE
SPERMA CETI WHALE. VIDE HIS V. E.

"Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail
He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail.

Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears,
And on his back a grove of pikes appears."

--WALLER'S BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.

"By art is created that great Leviathan,
called a Commonwealth or State--(in Latin,

Civitas) which is but an artificial man."
--OPENING SENTENCE OF HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN.

"Silly Mansoul swallowed it without
chewing, as if it had been a sprat in the

mouth of a whale."
--PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

"That sea beast Leviathan, which God of all
his works Created hugest that swim the

ocean stream."
--PARADISE LOST.

---"There Leviathan, Hugest of living
creatures, in the deep Stretched like a

promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a
moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and

at his breath spouts out a sea."

--IBID.

"The mighty whales which swim in a sea of
water, and have a sea of oil swimming in

them."
--FULLLER'S PROFANE AND HOLY STATE.

"So close behind some promontory lie
The huge Leviathan to attend their prey,

And give no chance, but swallow in the fry,
Which through their gaping jaws

mistake the way."
--DRYDEN'S ANNUS MIRABILIS.

"While the whale is floating at the stern
of the ship, they cut off his head, and tow

it with a boat as near the shore as it will
come; but it will be aground in twelve or

thirteen feet water."

--THOMAS EDGE'S TEN VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN,
IN PURCHAS.

"In their way they saw many whales sporting
in the ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up

the water through their pipes and vents,
which nature has placed on their

shoulders."

--SIR T. HERBERT'S VOYAGES INTO ASIA AND
AFRICA. HARRIS COLL.

"Here they saw such huge troops of whales,
that they were forced to proceed with a

great deal of caution for fear they should
run their ship upon them."

--SCHOUTEN'S SIXTH CIRCUMNAVIGATION.

"We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in
the ship called The Jonas-in-the-Whale....

Some say the whale can't open his mouth,
but that is a fable....

They frequently climb up the masts to see
whether they can see a whale, for the first

discoverer has a ducat for his pains....

I was told of a whale taken near Shetland,
that had above a barrel of herrings in his

belly....

One of our harpooneers told me that he
caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was

white all over."
--A VOYAGE TO GREENLAND, A.D. 1671 HARRIS

COLL.

"Several whales have come in upon this
coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one eighty feet in

length of the whale-bone kind came in,
which (as I was informed), besides a vast

quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of
baleen.

The jaws of it stand for a gate in the
garden of Pitferren."

--SIBBALD'S FIFE AND KINROSS.

"Myself have agreed to try whether I can
master and kill this Sperma-ceti whale, for

I could never hear of any of that sort that
was killed by any man, such is his

fierceness and swiftness."

--RICHARD STRAFFORD'S LETTER FROM THE
BERMUDAS. PHIL. TRANS. A.D. 1668.

"Whales in the sea God's voice obey."
--N. E. PRIMER.

"We saw also abundance of large whales,
there being more in those southern seas, as

I may say, by a hundred to one; than we
have to the northward of us."

--CAPTAIN COWLEY'S VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE,
A.D. 1729.

"... and the breath of the whale is
frequently attended with such an

insupportable smell, as to bring on a
disorder of the brain."

--ULLOA'S SOUTH AMERICA.

"To fifty chosen sylphs
of special note,

We trust the important charge,
the petticoat.

Oft have we known
that seven-fold fence to fail,

Tho' stuffed with hoops
and armed with ribs of whale."

--RAPE OF THE LOCK.

"If we compare land animals in respect to
magnitude, with those that take up their

abode in the deep, we shall find they will
appear contemptible in the comparison.

The whale is doubtless the largest animal
in creation."

--GOLDSMITH, NAT. HIST.

"If you should write a fable for little
fishes, you would make them speak like

great wales."
--GOLDSMITH TO JOHNSON.

"In the afternoon we saw what was supposed
to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead

whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and
were then towing ashore.

They seemed to endeavor to conceal
themselves behind the whale, in order to

avoid being seen by us."
--COOK'S VOYAGES.

"The larger whales, they seldom venture to
attack.

They stand in so great dread of some of
them, that when out at sea they are afraid

to mention even their names, and carry
dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, and some

other articles of the same nature in their

boats, in order to terrify and prevent
their too near approach."

--UNO VON TROIL'S LETTERS ON BANKS'S AND
SOLANDER'S VOYAGE TO ICELAND IN 1772.

"The Spermacetti Whale found by the
Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal,

and requires vast address and boldness in
the fishermen."

--THOMAS JEFFERSON'S WHALE MEMORIAL TO THE
FRENCH MINISTER IN 1778.

"And pray, sir, what in the world is equal
to it?"

--EDMUND BURKE'S REFERENCE IN PARLIAMENT TO
THE NANTUCKET WHALE-FISHERY.

"Spain--a great whale stranded on the
shores of Europe."

--EDMUND BURKE. (SOMEWHERE.)

"A tenth branch of the king's ordinary
revenue, said to be grounded on the

consideration of his guarding and
protecting the seas from pirates and

robbers, is the right to royal fish, which
are whale and sturgeon.

And these, when either thrown ashore or
caught near the coast, are the property of

the king."

--BLACKSTONE.

"Soon to the sport of death
the crews repair:

Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends
The barbed steel, and every turn attends."

--FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK.

"Bright shone the roofs,
the domes, the spires,

And rockets blew self driven,
To hang their momentary fire

Around the vault of heaven.

"So fire with water to compare,
The ocean serves on high,

Up-spouted by a whale in air,
To express unwieldy joy."

--COWPER, ON THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO LONDON.

"Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown
out of the heart at a stroke, with immense

velocity."
--JOHN HUNTER'S ACCOUNT OF THE DISSECTION

OF A WHALE. (A SMALL SIZED ONE.)

"The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore
than the main pipe of the water-works at

London Bridge, and the water roaring in its
passage through that pipe is inferior in

impetus and velocity to the blood gushing
from the whale's heart."

--PALEY'S THEOLOGY.

"The whale is a mammiferous animal without
hind feet."

--BARON CUVIER.

"In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti
Whales, but did not take any till the first

of May, the sea being then covered with
them."

--COLNETT'S VOYAGE FOR THE PURPOSE OF
EXTENDING THE SPERMACETI WHALE FISHERY.

"In the free element beneath me swam,
Floundered and dived,

in play, in chace, in battle,
Fishes of every colour, form, and kind;

Which language cannot paint, and mariner
Had never seen; from dread Leviathan

To insect millions peopling every wave:

Gather'd in shoals immense,
like floating islands,

Led by mysterious instincts
through that waste

And trackless region, though on every side
Assaulted by voracious enemies,

Whales, sharks, and monsters,
arm'd in front or jaw,

With swords, saws, spiral horns,
or hooked fangs."

--MONTGOMERY'S WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD.

"Io! Paean! Io! sing.
To the finny people's king.

Not a mightier whale than this
In the vast Atlantic is;

Not a fatter fish than he,
Flounders round the Polar Sea."

--CHARLES LAMB'S TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE.

"In the year 1690 some persons were on a
high hill observing the whales spouting and

sporting with each other, when one
observed: there--pointing to the sea--is a

green pasture where our children's grand-
children will go for bread."

--OBED MACY'S HISTORY OF NANTUCKET.

"I built a cottage for Susan and myself and
made a gateway in the form of a Gothic

Arch, by setting up a whale's jaw bones."
--HAWTHORNE'S TWICE TOLD TALES.

"She came to bespeak a monument for her
first love, who had been killed by a whale

in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty
years ago."

--IBID.

"No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale," answered
Tom; "I saw his sprout; he threw up a pair

of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would
wish to look at.

He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow!"

--COOPER'S PILOT.

"The papers were brought in, and we saw in
the Berlin Gazette that whales had been

introduced on the stage there."
--ECKERMANN'S CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE.

"My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?"
I answered, "we have been stove by a

whale."

--"NARRATIVE OF THE SHIPWRECK OF THE WHALE
SHIP ESSEX OF NANTUCKET, WHICH WAS ATTACKED

AND FINALLY DESTROYED BY A LARGE SPERM
WHALE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN."

BY OWEN CHACE OF NANTUCKET, FIRST MATE OF
SAID VESSEL.

NEW YORK, 1821.

"A mariner sat in the shrouds one night,
The wind was piping free;

Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight
pale,

And the phospher gleamed in the wake of
the whale,

As it floundered in the sea."

--ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.

"The quantity of line withdrawn from the
boats engaged in the capture of this one

whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards
or nearly six English miles....

"Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous
tail in the air, which, cracking like a

whip, resounds to the distance of three or
four miles."

--SCORESBY.

"Mad with the agonies he endures from these
fresh attacks, the infuriated Sperm Whale

rolls over and over; he rears his enormous
head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at

everything around him; he rushes at the

boats with his head; they are propelled
before him with vast swiftness, and

sometimes utterly destroyed....

It is a matter of great astonishment that
the consideration of the habits of so

interesting, and, in a commercial point of
view, so important an animal (as the Sperm

Whale) should have been so entirely

neglected, or should have excited so little
curiosity among the numerous, and many of

them competent observers, that of late
years, must have possessed the most

abundant and the most convenient

opportunities of witnessing their
habitudes."

--THOMAS BEALE'S HISTORY OF THE SPERM
WHALE, 1839.

"The Cachalot" (Sperm Whale) "is not only
better armed than the True Whale"

(Greenland or Right Whale) "in possessing a
formidable weapon at either extremity of

its body, but also more frequently displays

a disposition to employ these weapons
offensively and in manner at once so

artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead
to its being regarded as the most dangerous

to attack of all the known species of the
whale tribe."

--FREDERICK DEBELL BENNETT'S WHALING VOYAGE
ROUND THE GLOBE, 1840.

October 13.
"There she blows," was sung out from the

mast-head.
"Where away?" demanded the captain.

"Three points off the lee bow, sir."

"Raise up your wheel.
Steady!"

"Steady, sir."
"Mast-head ahoy!

Do you see that whale now?"

"Ay ay, sir!
A shoal of Sperm Whales!

There she blows!
There she breaches!"

"Sing out! sing out every time!"

"Ay Ay, sir!
There she blows! there--there--THAR she

blows--bowes--bo-o-os!"
"How far off?"

"Two miles and a half."

"Thunder and lightning! so near!
Call all hands."

--J. ROSS BROWNE'S ETCHINGS OF A WHALING
CRUIZE. 1846.

"The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which
vessel occurred the horrid transactions we

are about to relate, belonged to the island
of Nantucket."

--"NARRATIVE OF THE GLOBE," BY LAY AND
HUSSEY SURVIVORS. A.D. 1828.

Being once pursued by a whale which he had
wounded, he parried the assault for some

time with a lance; but the furious monster
at length rushed on the boat; himself and

comrades only being preserved by leaping

into the water when they saw the onset was
inevitable."

--MISSIONARY JOURNAL OF TYERMAN AND
BENNETT.

"Nantucket itself," said Mr. Webster, "is a
very striking and peculiar portion of the

National interest.

There is a population of eight or nine
thousand persons living here in the sea,

adding largely every year to the National
wealth by the boldest and most persevering

industry."

--REPORT OF DANIEL WEBSTER'S SPEECH IN THE
U. S. SENATE, ON THE APPLICATION FOR THE

ERECTION OF A BREAKWATER AT NANTUCKET.
1828.

"The whale fell directly over him, and
probably killed him in a moment."

--"THE WHALE AND HIS CAPTORS, OR THE
WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES AND THE WHALE'S

BIOGRAPHY, GATHERED ON THE HOMEWARD CRUISE
OF THE COMMODORE PREBLE." BY REV. HENRY T.

CHEEVER.

"If you make the least damn bit of noise,"
replied Samuel, "I will send you to hell."

--LIFE OF SAMUEL COMSTOCK (THE MUTINEER),
BY HIS BROTHER, WILLIAM COMSTOCK.

ANOTHER VERSION OF THE WHALE-SHIP GLOBE
NARRATIVE.

"The voyages of the Dutch and English to
the Northern Ocean, in order, if possible,

to discover a passage through it to India,
though they failed of their main object,

laid-open the haunts of the whale."

--MCCULLOCH'S COMMERCIAL DICTIONARY.

"These things are reciprocal; the ball
rebounds, only to bound forward again; for

now in laying open the haunts of the whale,
the whalemen seem to have indirectly hit

upon new clews to that same mystic North-
West Passage."

--FROM "SOMETHING" UNPUBLISHED.

"It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on
the ocean without being struck by her near

appearance.

The vessel under short sail, with look-outs
at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the

wide expanse around them, has a totally
different air from those engaged in regular

voyage."

--CURRENTS AND WHALING. U.S. EX. EX.

"Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and
elsewhere may recollect having seen large

curved bones set upright in the earth,
either to form arches over gateways, or

entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps

have been told that these were the ribs of
whales."

--TALES OF A WHALE VOYAGER TO THE ARCTIC
OCEAN.

"It was not till the boats returned from
the pursuit of these whales, that the

whites saw their ship in bloody possession
of the savages enrolled among the crew."

--NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT OF THE TAKING AND
RETAKING OF THE WHALE-SHIP HOBOMACK.

"It is generally well known that out of the
crews of Whaling vessels (American) few

ever return in the ships on board of which
they departed."

--CRUISE IN A WHALE BOAT.

"Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the
water, and shot up perpendicularly into the

air.
It was the while."

--MIRIAM COFFIN OR THE WHALE FISHERMAN.

"The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but
bethink you, how you would manage a

powerful unbroken colt, with the mere
appliance of a rope tied to the root of his

tail."

--A CHAPTER ON WHALING IN RIBS AND TRUCKS.

"On one occasion I saw two of these
monsters (whales) probably male and female,

slowly swimming, one after the other,
within less than a stone's throw of the

shore" (Terra Del Fuego), "over which the
beech tree extended its branches."

--DARWIN'S VOYAGE OF A NATURALIST.

"'Stern all!' exclaimed the mate, as upon
turning his head, he saw the distended jaws

of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of
the boat, threatening it with instant

destruction;--'Stern all, for your lives!'"

--WHARTON THE WHALE KILLER.

"So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts
never fail, While the bold harpooneer is

striking the whale!"
--NANTUCKET SONG.

"Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale
In his ocean home will be

A giant in might, where might is right,
And King of the boundless sea."

--WHALE SONG.

>

-Chapter 1.
Loomings.

Call me Ishmael.

Some years ago--never mind how long
precisely--having little or no money in my

purse, and nothing particular to interest
me on shore, I thought I would sail about a

little and see the watery part of the
world.

It is a way I have of driving off the
spleen and regulating the circulation.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about
the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly

November in my soul; whenever I find myself
involuntarily pausing before coffin

warehouses, and bringing up the rear of

every funeral I meet; and especially
whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of

me, that it requires a strong moral
principle to prevent me from deliberately

stepping into the street, and methodically

knocking people's hats off--then, I account
it high time to get to sea as soon as I

can.
This is my substitute for pistol and ball.

With a philosophical flourish Cato throws
himself upon his sword; I quietly take to

the ship.
There is nothing surprising in this.

If they but knew it, almost all men in
their degree, some time or other, cherish

very nearly the same feelings towards the
ocean with me.

There now is your insular city of the
Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as

Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce
surrounds it with her surf.

Right and left, the streets take you
waterward.

Its extreme downtown is the battery, where
that noble mole is washed by waves, and

cooled by breezes, which a few hours
previous were out of sight of land.

Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath
afternoon.

Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and
from thence, by Whitehall, northward.

What do you see?--Posted like silent
sentinels all around the town, stand

thousands upon thousands of mortal men
fixed in ocean reveries.

Some leaning against the spiles; some
seated upon the pier-heads; some looking

over the bulwarks of ships from China; some
high aloft in the rigging, as if striving

to get a still better seaward peep.

But these are all landsmen; of week days
pent up in lath and plaster--tied to

counters, nailed to benches, clinched to
desks.

How then is this?

Are the green fields gone?
What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing
straight for the water, and seemingly bound

for a dive.

Strange!
Nothing will content them but the extremest

limit of the land; loitering under the
shady lee of yonder warehouses will not

suffice.

No. They must get just as nigh the water as
they possibly can without falling in.

And there they stand--miles of them--
leagues.

Inlanders all, they come from lanes and
alleys, streets and avenues--north, east,

south, and west.
Yet here they all unite.

Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the
needles of the compasses of all those ships

attract them thither?
Once more.

Say you are in the country; in some high
land of lakes.

Take almost any path you please, and ten to
one it carries you down in a dale, and

leaves you there by a pool in the stream.

There is magic in it.

Let the most absent-minded of men be
plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that

man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and
he will infallibly lead you to water, if

water there be in all that region.

Should you ever be athirst in the great
American desert, try this experiment, if

your caravan happen to be supplied with a
metaphysical professor.

Yes, as every one knows, meditation and
water are wedded for ever.

But here is an artist.

He desires to paint you the dreamiest,
shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of

romantic landscape in all the valley of the
Saco.

What is the chief element he employs?

There stand his trees, each with a hollow
trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were

within; and here sleeps his meadow, and
there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder

cottage goes a sleepy smoke.

Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy
way, reaching to overlapping spurs of

mountains bathed in their hill-side blue.

But though the picture lies thus tranced,
and though this pine-tree shakes down its

sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's
head, yet all were vain, unless the

shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic
stream before him.

Go visit the Prairies in June, when for
scores on scores of miles you wade knee-

deep among Tiger-lilies--what is the one
charm wanting?--Water--there is not a drop

of water there!

Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would
you travel your thousand miles to see it?

Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon
suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver,

deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which
he sadly needed, or invest his money in a

pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach?

Why is almost every robust healthy boy with
a robust healthy soul in him, at some time

or other crazy to go to sea?

Why upon your first voyage as a passenger,
did you yourself feel such a mystical

vibration, when first told that you and
your ship were now out of sight of land?

Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy?

Why did the Greeks give it a separate
deity, and own brother of Jove?

Surely all this is not without meaning.

And still deeper the meaning of that story
of Narcissus, who because he could not

grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in
the fountain, plunged into it and was

drowned.

But that same image, we ourselves see in
all rivers and oceans.

It is the image of the ungraspable phantom
of life; and this is the key to it all.

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of
going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy

about the eyes, and begin to be over
conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to

have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a
passenger.

For to go as a passenger you must needs
have a purse, and a purse is but a rag

unless you have something in it.

Besides, passengers get sea-sick--grow
quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not

enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;-
-no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though

I am something of a salt, do I ever go to

sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a
Cook.

I abandon the glory and distinction of such
offices to those who like them.

For my part, I abominate all honourable
respectable toils, trials, and tribulations

of every kind whatsoever.

It is quite as much as I can do to take
care of myself, without taking care of

ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what
not.

And as for going as cook,--though I confess
there is considerable glory in that, a cook

being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet,
somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;--

though once broiled, judiciously buttered,

and judgmatically salted and peppered,
there is no one who will speak more

respectfully, not to say reverentially, of
a broiled fowl than I will.

It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the
old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted

river horse, that you see the mummies of
those creatures in their huge bake-houses

the pyramids.

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple
sailor, right before the mast, plumb down

into the forecastle, aloft there to the
royal mast-head.

True, they rather order me about some, and
make me jump from spar to spar, like a

grasshopper in a May meadow.
And at first, this sort of thing is

unpleasant enough.

It touches one's sense of honour,
particularly if you come of an old

established family in the land, the Van
Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes.

And more than all, if just previous to
putting your hand into the tar-pot, you

have been lording it as a country
schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand

in awe of you.

The transition is a keen one, I assure you,
from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and

requires a strong decoction of Seneca and
the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear

it.

But even this wears off in time.
What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-

captain orders me to get a broom and sweep
down the decks?

What does that indignity amount to,
weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New

Testament?

Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks
anything the less of me, because I promptly

and respectfully obey that old hunks in
that particular instance?

Who ain't a slave?

Tell me that.

Well, then, however the old sea-captains
may order me about--however they may thump

and punch me about, I have the satisfaction
of knowing that it is all right; that

everybody else is one way or other served

in much the same way--either in a physical
or metaphysical point of view, that is; and

so the universal thump is passed round, and
all hands should rub each other's shoulder-

blades, and be content.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor,
because they make a point of paying me for

my trouble, whereas they never pay
passengers a single penny that I ever heard

of.

On the contrary, passengers themselves must
pay.

And there is all the difference in the
world between paying and being paid.

The act of paying is perhaps the most
uncomfortable infliction that the two

orchard thieves entailed upon us.
But BEING PAID,--what will compare with it?

The urbane activity with which a man
receives money is really marvellous,

considering that we so earnestly believe
money to be the root of all earthly ills,

and that on no account can a monied man
enter heaven.

Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to
perdition!

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor,
because of the wholesome exercise and pure

air of the fore-castle deck.

For as in this world, head winds are far
more prevalent than winds from astern (that

is, if you never violate the Pythagorean
maxim), so for the most part the Commodore

on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at

second hand from the sailors on the
forecastle.

He thinks he breathes it first; but not so.

In much the same way do the commonalty lead
their leaders in many other things, at the

same time that the leaders little suspect
it.

But wherefore it was that after having
repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant

sailor, I should now take it into my head
to go on a whaling voyage; this the

invisible police officer of the Fates, who

has the constant surveillance of me, and
secretly dogs me, and influences me in some

unaccountable way--he can better answer
than any one else.

And, doubtless, my going on this whaling
voyage, formed part of the grand programme

of Providence that was drawn up a long time
ago.

It came in as a sort of brief interlude and
solo between more extensive performances.

I take it that this part of the bill must
have run something like this:

"GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE
PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES.

"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly
that those stage managers, the Fates, put

me down for this shabby part of a whaling
voyage, when others were set down for

magnificent parts in high tragedies, and

short and easy parts in genteel comedies,
and jolly parts in farces--though I cannot

tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I
recall all the circumstances, I think I can

see a little into the springs and motives

which being cunningly presented to me under
various disguises, induced me to set about

performing the part I did, besides cajoling
me into the delusion that it was a choice

resulting from my own unbiased freewill and
discriminating judgment.

Chief among these motives was the
overwhelming idea of the great whale

himself.

Such a portentous and mysterious monster
roused all my curiosity.

Then the wild and distant seas where he
rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable,

nameless perils of the whale; these, with
all the attending marvels of a thousand

Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to
sway me to my wish.

With other men, perhaps, such things would
not have been inducements; but as for me,

I am tormented with an everlasting itch for
things remote.

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on
barbarous coasts.

Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to
perceive a horror, and could still be

social with it--would they let me--since it
is but well to be on friendly terms with

all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

By reason of these things, then, the
whaling voyage was welcome; the great

flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open,
and in the wild conceits that swayed me to

my purpose, two and two there floated into

my inmost soul, endless processions of the
whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand

hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the
air.

Chapter 2.
The Carpet-Bag.

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old
carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and

started for Cape Horn and the Pacific.
Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I

duly arrived in New Bedford.

It was a Saturday night in December.

Much was I disappointed upon learning that
the little packet for Nantucket had already

sailed, and that no way of reaching that
place would offer, till the following

Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains and
penalties of whaling stop at this same New

Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage,
it may as well be related that I, for one,

had no idea of so doing.

For my mind was made up to sail in no other
than a Nantucket craft, because there was a

fine, boisterous something about everything
connected with that famous old island,

which amazingly pleased me.

Besides though New Bedford has of late been
gradually monopolising the business of

whaling, and though in this matter poor old
Nantucket is now much behind her, yet

Nantucket was her great original--the Tyre

of this Carthage;--the place where the
first dead American whale was stranded.

Where else but from Nantucket did those
aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first

sally out in canoes to give chase to the
Leviathan?

And where but from Nantucket, too, did that
first adventurous little sloop put forth,

partly laden with imported cobblestones--so
goes the story--to throw at the whales, in

order to discover when they were nigh
enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?

Now having a night, a day, and still
another night following before me in New

Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined
port, it became a matter of concernment

where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile.

It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very
dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and

cheerless.
I knew no one in the place.

With anxious grapnels I had sounded my
pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of

silver,--So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said
I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a

dreary street shouldering my bag, and

comparing the gloom towards the north with
the darkness towards the south--wherever in

your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for
the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to

inquire the price, and don't be too
particular.

With halting steps I paced the streets, and
passed the sign of "The Crossed Harpoons"--

but it looked too expensive and jolly
there.

Further on, from the bright red windows of
the "Sword-Fish Inn," there came such

fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted
the packed snow and ice from before the

house, for everywhere else the congealed

frost lay ten inches thick in a hard,
asphaltic pavement,--rather weary for me,

when I struck my foot against the flinty
projections, because from hard, remorseless

service the soles of my boots were in a
most miserable plight.

Too expensive and jolly, again thought I,
pausing one moment to watch the broad glare

in the street, and hear the sounds of the
tinkling glasses within.

But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don't
you hear? get away from before the door;

your patched boots are stopping the way.
So on I went.

I now by instinct followed the streets that
took me waterward, for there, doubtless,

were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest
inns.

Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness,
not houses, on either hand, and here and

there a candle, like a candle moving about
in a tomb.

At this hour of the night, of the last day
of the week, that quarter of the town

proved all but deserted.

But presently I came to a smoky light
proceeding from a low, wide building, the

door of which stood invitingly open.

It had a careless look, as if it were meant
for the uses of the public; so, entering,

the first thing I did was to stumble over
an ash-box in the porch.

Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles
almost choked me, are these ashes from that

destroyed city, Gomorrah?

But "The Crossed Harpoons," and "The Sword-
Fish?"--this, then must needs be the sign

of "The Trap."

However, I picked myself up and hearing a
loud voice within, pushed on and opened a

second, interior door.
It seemed the great Black Parliament

sitting in Tophet.

A hundred black faces turned round in their
rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of

Doom was beating a book in a pulpit.

It was a negro church; and the preacher's
text was about the blackness of darkness,

and the weeping and wailing and teeth-
gnashing there.

Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out,
Wretched entertainment at the sign of 'The

Trap!'

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of
light not far from the docks, and heard a

forlorn creaking in the air; and looking
up, saw a swinging sign over the door with

a white painting upon it, faintly

representing a tall straight jet of misty
spray, and these words underneath--"The

Spouter Inn:--Peter Coffin."
Coffin?--Spouter?--Rather ominous in that

particular connexion, thought I.

But it is a common name in Nantucket, they
say, and I suppose this Peter here is an

emigrant from there.

As the light looked so dim, and the place,
for the time, looked quiet enough, and the

dilapidated little wooden house itself
looked as if it might have been carted here

from the ruins of some burnt district, and

as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken
sort of creak to it, I thought that here

was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and
the best of pea coffee.

It was a queer sort of place--a gable-ended
old house, one side palsied as it were, and

leaning over sadly.

It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where
that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a

worse howling than ever it did about poor
Paul's tossed craft.

Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty
pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with

his feet on the hob quietly toasting for
bed.

"In judging of that tempestuous wind called
Euroclydon," says an old writer--of whose

works I possess the only copy extant--"it
maketh a marvellous difference, whether

thou lookest out at it from a glass window

where the frost is all on the outside, or
whether thou observest it from that

sashless window, where the frost is on both
sides, and of which the wight Death is the

only glazier."

True enough, thought I, as this passage
occurred to my mind--old black-letter, thou

reasonest well.
Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body

of mine is the house.

What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks
and the crannies though, and thrust in a

little lint here and there.
But it's too late to make any improvements

now.

The universe is finished; the copestone is
on, and the chips were carted off a million

years ago.

Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth
against the curbstone for his pillow, and

shaking off his tatters with his
shiverings, he might plug up both ears with

rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth,

and yet that would not keep out the
tempestuous Euroclydon.

Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red
silken wrapper--(he had a redder one

afterwards) pooh, pooh!

What a fine frosty night; how Orion
glitters; what northern lights!

Let them talk of their oriental summer
climes of everlasting conservatories; give

me the privilege of making my own summer
with my own coals.

But what thinks Lazarus?

Can he warm his blue hands by holding them
up to the grand northern lights?

Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than
here?

Would he not far rather lay him down
lengthwise along the line of the equator;

yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit
itself, in order to keep out this frost?

Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there
on the curbstone before the door of Dives,

this is more wonderful than that an iceberg
should be moored to one of the Moluccas.

Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar
in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and

being a president of a temperance society,
he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.

But no more of this blubbering now, we are
going a-whaling, and there is plenty of

that yet to come.

Let us scrape the ice from our frosted
feet, and see what sort of a place this

"Spouter" may be.

>

-Chapter 3.
The Spouter-Inn.

Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you
found yourself in a wide, low, straggling

entry with old-fashioned wainscots,
reminding one of the bulwarks of some

condemned old craft.

On one side hung a very large oilpainting
so thoroughly besmoked, and every way

defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by
which you viewed it, it was only by

diligent study and a series of systematic

visits to it, and careful inquiry of the
neighbors, that you could any way arrive at

an understanding of its purpose.

Such unaccountable masses of shades and
shadows, that at first you almost thought

some ambitious young artist, in the time of
the New England hags, had endeavored to

delineate chaos bewitched.

But by dint of much and earnest
contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings,

and especially by throwing open the little
window towards the back of the entry, you

at last come to the conclusion that such an

idea, however wild, might not be altogether
unwarranted.

But what most puzzled and confounded you
was a long, limber, portentous, black mass

of something hovering in the centre of the
picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular

lines floating in a nameless yeast.

A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly,
enough to drive a nervous man distracted.

Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-
attained, unimaginable sublimity about it

that fairly froze you to it, till you
involuntarily took an oath with yourself to

find out what that marvellous painting
meant.

Ever and anon a bright, but, alas,
deceptive idea would dart you through.--

It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.--
It's the unnatural combat of the four

primal elements.--It's a blasted heath.--

It's a Hyperborean winter scene.--It's the
breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time.

But at last all these fancies yielded to
that one portentous something in the

picture's midst.

THAT once found out, and all the rest were
plain.

But stop; does it not bear a faint
resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the

great leviathan himself?

In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a
final theory of my own, partly based upon

the aggregated opinions of many aged
persons with whom I conversed upon the

subject.

The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a
great hurricane; the half-foundered ship

weltering there with its three dismantled
masts alone visible; and an exasperated

whale, purposing to spring clean over the

craft, is in the enormous act of impaling
himself upon the three mast-heads.

The opposite wall of this entry was hung
all over with a heathenish array of

monstrous clubs and spears.

Some were thickly set with glittering teeth
resembling ivory saws; others were tufted

with knots of human hair; and one was
sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping

round like the segment made in the new-mown
grass by a long-armed mower.

You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered
what monstrous cannibal and savage could

ever have gone a death-harvesting with such
a hacking, horrifying implement.

Mixed with these were rusty old whaling
lances and harpoons all broken and

deformed.
Some were storied weapons.

With this once long lance, now wildly
elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain

kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a
sunset.

And that harpoon--so like a corkscrew now--
was flung in Javan seas, and run away with

by a whale, years afterwards slain off the
Cape of Blanco.

The original iron entered nigh the tail,
and, like a restless needle sojourning in

the body of a man, travelled full forty
feet, and at last was found imbedded in the

hump.

Crossing this dusky entry, and on through
yon low-arched way--cut through what in old

times must have been a great central
chimney with fireplaces all round--you

enter the public room.

A still duskier place is this, with such
low ponderous beams above, and such old

wrinkled planks beneath, that you would
almost fancy you trod some old craft's

cockpits, especially of such a howling

night, when this corner-anchored old ark
rocked so furiously.

On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like
table covered with cracked glass cases,

filled with dusty rarities gathered from
this wide world's remotest nooks.

Projecting from the further angle of the
room stands a dark-looking den--the bar--a

rude attempt at a right whale's head.

Be that how it may, there stands the vast
arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a

coach might almost drive beneath it.

Within are shabby shelves, ranged round
with old decanters, bottles, flasks; and in

those jaws of swift destruction, like
another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed

they called him), bustles a little withered

old man, who, for their money, dearly sells
the sailors deliriums and death.

Abominable are the tumblers into which he
pours his poison.

Though true cylinders without--within, the
villanous green goggling glasses

deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating
bottom.

Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the
glass, surround these footpads' goblets.

Fill to THIS mark, and your charge is but a
penny; to THIS a penny more; and so on to

the full glass--the Cape Horn measure,
which you may gulp down for a shilling.

Upon entering the place I found a number of
young seamen gathered about a table,

examining by a dim light divers specimens
of SKRIMSHANDER.

I sought the landlord, and telling him I
desired to be accommodated with a room,

received for answer that his house was
full--not a bed unoccupied.

"But avast," he added, tapping his
forehead, "you haint no objections to

sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye?
I s'pose you are goin' a-whalin', so you'd

better get used to that sort of thing."

I told him that I never liked to sleep two
in a bed; that if I should ever do so, it

would depend upon who the harpooneer might
be, and that if he (the landlord) really

had no other place for me, and the

harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable,
why rather than wander further about a

strange town on so bitter a night, I would
put up with the half of any decent man's

blanket.

"I thought so.
All right; take a seat.

Supper?--you want supper?
Supper'll be ready directly."

I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved
all over like a bench on the Battery.

At one end a ruminating tar was still
further adorning it with his jack-knife,

stooping over and diligently working away
at the space between his legs.

He was trying his hand at a ship under full
sail, but he didn't make much headway, I

thought.
At last some four or five of us were

summoned to our meal in an adjoining room.

It was cold as Iceland--no fire at all--the
landlord said he couldn't afford it.

Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each
in a winding sheet.

We were fain to button up our monkey
jackets, and hold to our lips cups of

scalding tea with our half frozen fingers.

But the fare was of the most substantial
kind--not only meat and potatoes, but

dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for
supper!

One young fellow in a green box coat,
addressed himself to these dumplings in a

most direful manner.
"My boy," said the landlord, "you'll have

the nightmare to a dead sartainty."

"Landlord," I whispered, "that aint the
harpooneer is it?"

"Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of
diabolically funny, "the harpooneer is a

dark complexioned chap.

He never eats dumplings, he don't--he eats
nothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare."

"The devil he does," says I.
"Where is that harpooneer?

Is he here?"

"He'll be here afore long," was the answer.
I could not help it, but I began to feel

suspicious of this "dark complexioned"
harpooneer.

At any rate, I made up my mind that if it
so turned out that we should sleep

together, he must undress and get into bed
before I did.

Supper over, the company went back to the
bar-room, when, knowing not what else to do

with myself, I resolved to spend the rest
of the evening as a looker on.

Presently a rioting noise was heard
without.

Starting up, the landlord cried, "That's
the Grampus's crew.

I seed her reported in the offing this
morning; a three years' voyage, and a full

ship.
Hurrah, boys; now we'll have the latest

news from the Feegees."

A tramping of sea boots was heard in the
entry; the door was flung open, and in

rolled a wild set of mariners enough.

Enveloped in their shaggy watch coats, and
with their heads muffled in woollen

comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and
their beards stiff with icicles, they

seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador.

They had just landed from their boat, and
this was the first house they entered.

No wonder, then, that they made a straight
wake for the whale's mouth--the bar--when

the wrinkled little old Jonah, there
officiating, soon poured them out brimmers

all round.

One complained of a bad cold in his head,
upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like

potion of gin and molasses, which he swore
was a sovereign cure for all colds and

catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long

standing, or whether caught off the coast
of Labrador, or on the weather side of an

ice-island.

The liquor soon mounted into their heads,
as it generally does even with the

arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and
they began capering about most

obstreperously.

I observed, however, that one of them held
somewhat aloof, and though he seemed

desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his
shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon

the whole he refrained from making as much
noise as the rest.

This man interested me at once; and since
the sea-gods had ordained that he should

soon become my shipmate (though but a
sleeping-partner one, so far as this

narrative is concerned), I will here
venture upon a little description of him.

He stood full six feet in height, with
noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-

dam.

I have seldom seen such brawn in a man.

His face was deeply brown and burnt, making
his white teeth dazzling by the contrast;

while in the deep shadows of his eyes
floated some reminiscences that did not

seem to give him much joy.

His voice at once announced that he was a
Southerner, and from his fine stature, I

thought he must be one of those tall
mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in

Virginia.

When the revelry of his companions had
mounted to its height, this man slipped

away unobserved, and I saw no more of him
till he became my comrade on the sea.

In a few minutes, however, he was missed by
his shipmates, and being, it seems, for

some reason a huge favourite with them,
they raised a cry of "Bulkington!

Bulkington! where's Bulkington?" and darted
out of the house in pursuit of him.

It was now about nine o'clock, and the room
seeming almost supernaturally quiet after

these orgies, I began to congratulate
myself upon a little plan that had occurred

to me just previous to the entrance of the
seamen.

No man prefers to sleep two in a bed.
In fact, you would a good deal rather not

sleep with your own brother.

I don't know how it is, but people like to
be private when they are sleeping.

And when it comes to sleeping with an
unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a

strange town, and that stranger a
harpooneer, then your objections

indefinitely multiply.

Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a
sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than

anybody else; for sailors no more sleep two
in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do

ashore.

To be sure they all sleep together in one
apartment, but you have your own hammock,

and cover yourself with your own blanket,
and sleep in your own skin.

The more I pondered over this harpooneer,
the more I abominated the thought of

sleeping with him.

It was fair to presume that being a
harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the

case might be, would not be of the tidiest,
certainly none of the finest.

I began to twitch all over.

Besides, it was getting late, and my decent
harpooneer ought to be home and going

bedwards.

Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at
midnight--how could I tell from what vile

hole he had been coming?
"Landlord!

I've changed my mind about that
harpooneer.--I shan't sleep with him.

I'll try the bench here."

"Just as you please; I'm sorry I cant spare
ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and it's a

plaguy rough board here"--feeling of the
knots and notches.

"But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got a
carpenter's plane there in the bar--wait,

I say, and I'll make ye snug enough."

So saying he procured the plane; and with
his old silk handkerchief first dusting the

bench, vigorously set to planing away at my
bed, the while grinning like an ape.

The shavings flew right and left; till at
last the plane-iron came bump against an

indestructible knot.

The landlord was near spraining his wrist,
and I told him for heaven's sake to quit--

the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I
did not know how all the planing in the

world could make eider down of a pine
plank.

So gathering up the shavings with another
grin, and throwing them into the great

stove in the middle of the room, he went
about his business, and left me in a brown

study.

I now took the measure of the bench, and
found that it was a foot too short; but

that could be mended with a chair.

But it was a foot too narrow, and the other
bench in the room was about four inches

higher than the planed one--so there was no
yoking them.

I then placed the first bench lengthwise
along the only clear space against the

wall, leaving a little interval between,
for my back to settle down in.

But I soon found that there came such a
draught of cold air over me from under the

sill of the window, that this plan would
never do at all, especially as another

current from the rickety door met the one

from the window, and both together formed a
series of small whirlwinds in the immediate

vicinity of the spot where I had thought to
spend the night.

The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I,
but stop, couldn't I steal a march on him--

bolt his door inside, and jump into his
bed, not to be wakened by the most violent

knockings?

It seemed no bad idea; but upon second
thoughts I dismissed it.

For who could tell but what the next
morning, so soon as I popped out of the

room, the harpooneer might be standing in
the entry, all ready to knock me down!

Still, looking round me again, and seeing
no possible chance of spending a sufferable

night unless in some other person's bed, I
began to think that after all I might be

cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against
this unknown harpooneer.

Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must be
dropping in before long.

I'll have a good look at him then, and
perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows

after all--there's no telling.

But though the other boarders kept coming
in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to

bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.
"Landlord!" said I, "what sort of a chap is

he--does he always keep such late hours?"

It was now hard upon twelve o'clock.
The landlord chuckled again with his lean

chuckle, and seemed to be mightily tickled
at something beyond my comprehension.

"No," he answered, "generally he's an early
bird--airley to bed and airley to rise--

yes, he's the bird what catches the worm.

But to-night he went out a peddling, you
see, and I don't see what on airth keeps

him so late, unless, may be, he can't sell
his head."

"Can't sell his head?--What sort of a
bamboozingly story is this you are telling

me?" getting into a towering rage.

"Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this
harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed

Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning,
in peddling his head around this town?"

"That's precisely it," said the landlord,
"and I told him he couldn't sell it here,

the market's overstocked."
"With what?" shouted I.

"With heads to be sure; ain't there too
many heads in the world?"

"I tell you what it is, landlord," said I
quite calmly, "you'd better stop spinning

that yarn to me--I'm not green."

"May be not," taking out a stick and
whittling a toothpick, "but I rayther guess

you'll be done BROWN if that ere harpooneer
hears you a slanderin' his head."

"I'll break it for him," said I, now flying
into a passion again at this unaccountable

farrago of the landlord's.
"It's broke a'ready," said he.

"Broke," said I--"BROKE, do you mean?"

"Sartain, and that's the very reason he
can't sell it, I guess."

"Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool
as Mt. Hecla in a snow-storm--"landlord,

stop whittling.

You and I must understand one another, and
that too without delay.

I come to your house and want a bed; you
tell me you can only give me half a one;

that the other half belongs to a certain
harpooneer.

And about this harpooneer, whom I have not
yet seen, you persist in telling me the

most mystifying and exasperating stories
tending to beget in me an uncomfortable

feeling towards the man whom you design for

my bedfellow--a sort of connexion,
landlord, which is an intimate and

confidential one in the highest degree.

I now demand of you to speak out and tell
me who and what this harpooneer is, and

whether I shall be in all respects safe to
spend the night with him.

And in the first place, you will be so good
as to unsay that story about selling his

head, which if true I take to be good
evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad,

and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman;

and you, sir, YOU I mean, landlord, YOU,
sir, by trying to induce me to do so

knowingly, would thereby render yourself
liable to a criminal prosecution."

"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long
breath, "that's a purty long sarmon for a

chap that rips a little now and then.

But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer
I have been tellin' you of has just arrived

from the south seas, where he bought up a
lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads (great

curios, you know), and he's sold all on 'em

but one, and that one he's trying to sell
to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it

would not do to be sellin' human heads
about the streets when folks is goin' to

churches.

He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped
him just as he was goin' out of the door

with four heads strung on a string, for all
the airth like a string of inions."

This account cleared up the otherwise
unaccountable mystery, and showed that the

landlord, after all, had had no idea of
fooling me--but at the same time what could

I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a

Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath,
engaged in such a cannibal business as

selling the heads of dead idolators?
"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer

is a dangerous man."

"He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder.
"But come, it's getting dreadful late, you

had better be turning flukes--it's a nice
bed; Sal and me slept in that ere bed the

night we were spliced.

There's plenty of room for two to kick
about in that bed; it's an almighty big bed

that.

Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put
our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of

it.

But I got a dreaming and sprawling about
one night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on

the floor, and came near breaking his arm.
Arter that, Sal said it wouldn't do.

Come along here, I'll give ye a glim in a
jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a candle

and held it towards me, offering to lead
the way.

But I stood irresolute; when looking at a
clock in the corner, he exclaimed "I vum

it's Sunday--you won't see that harpooneer
to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere--

come along then; DO come; WON'T ye come?"

I considered the matter a moment, and then
up stairs we went, and I was ushered into a

small room, cold as a clam, and furnished,
sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost

big enough indeed for any four harpooneers
to sleep abreast.

"There," said the landlord, placing the
candle on a crazy old sea chest that did

double duty as a wash-stand and centre
table; "there, make yourself comfortable

now, and good night to ye."

I turned round from eyeing the bed, but he
had disappeared.

Folding back the counterpane, I stooped
over the bed.

Though none of the most elegant, it yet
stood the scrutiny tolerably well.

I then glanced round the room; and besides
the bedstead and centre table, could see no

other furniture belonging to the place, but
a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered

fireboard representing a man striking a
whale.

Of things not properly belonging to the
room, there was a hammock lashed up, and

thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a
large seaman's bag, containing the

harpooneer's wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of
a land trunk.

Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish
bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-

place, and a tall harpoon standing at the
head of the bed.

But what is this on the chest?

I took it up, and held it close to the
light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried

every way possible to arrive at some
satisfactory conclusion concerning it.

I can compare it to nothing but a large
door mat, ornamented at the edges with

little tinkling tags something like the
stained porcupine quills round an Indian

moccasin.

There was a hole or slit in the middle of
this mat, as you see the same in South

American ponchos.

But could it be possible that any sober
harpooneer would get into a door mat, and

parade the streets of any Christian town in
that sort of guise?

I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me
down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy

and thick, and I thought a little damp, as
though this mysterious harpooneer had been

wearing it of a rainy day.

I went up in it to a bit of glass stuck
against the wall, and I never saw such a

sight in my life.
I tore myself out of it in such a hurry

that I gave myself a kink in the neck.

I sat down on the side of the bed, and
commenced thinking about this head-peddling

harpooneer, and his door mat.

After thinking some time on the bed-side,
I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and

then stood in the middle of the room
thinking.

I then took off my coat, and thought a
little more in my shirt sleeves.

But beginning to feel very cold now, half
undressed as I was, and remembering what

the landlord said about the harpooneer's
not coming home at all that night, it being

so very late, I made no more ado, but

jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and
then blowing out the light tumbled into

bed, and commended myself to the care of
heaven.

Whether that mattress was stuffed with
corn-cobs or broken crockery, there is no

telling, but I rolled about a good deal,
and could not sleep for a long time.

At last I slid off into a light doze, and
had pretty nearly made a good offing

towards the land of Nod, when I heard a
heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a

glimmer of light come into the room from
under the door.

Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the
harpooneer, the infernal head-peddler.

But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not
to say a word till spoken to.

Holding a light in one hand, and that
identical New Zealand head in the other,

the stranger entered the room, and without
looking towards the bed, placed his candle

a good way off from me on the floor in one

corner, and then began working away at the
knotted cords of the large bag I before

spoke of as being in the room.

I was all eagerness to see his face, but he
kept it averted for some time while

employed in unlacing the bag's mouth.
This accomplished, however, he turned

round--when, good heavens! what a sight!

Such a face!
It was of a dark, purplish, yellow colour,

here and there stuck over with large
blackish looking squares.

Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a
terrible bedfellow; he's been in a fight,

got dreadfully cut, and here he is, just
from the surgeon.

But at that moment he chanced to turn his
face so towards the light, that I plainly

saw they could not be sticking-plasters at
all, those black squares on his cheeks.

They were stains of some sort or other.

At first I knew not what to make of this;
but soon an inkling of the truth occurred

to me.

I remembered a story of a white man--a
whaleman too--who, falling among the

cannibals, had been tattooed by them.

I concluded that this harpooneer, in the
course of his distant voyages, must have

met with a similar adventure.
And what is it, thought I, after all!

It's only his outside; a man can be honest
in any sort of skin.

But then, what to make of his unearthly
complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying

round about, and completely independent of
the squares of tattooing.

To be sure, it might be nothing but a good
coat of tropical tanning; but I never heard

of a hot sun's tanning a white man into a
purplish yellow one.

However, I had never been in the South
Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced

these extraordinary effects upon the skin.

Now, while all these ideas were passing
through me like lightning, this harpooneer

never noticed me at all.

But, after some difficulty having opened
his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and

presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk,
and a seal-skin wallet with the hair on.

Placing these on the old chest in the
middle of the room, he then took the New

Zealand head--a ghastly thing enough--and
crammed it down into the bag.

He now took off his hat--a new beaver hat--
when I came nigh singing out with fresh

surprise.

There was no hair on his head--none to
speak of at least--nothing but a small

scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead.
His bald purplish head now looked for all

the world like a mildewed skull.

Had not the stranger stood between me and
the door, I would have bolted out of it

quicker than ever I bolted a dinner.

Even as it was, I thought something of
slipping out of the window, but it was the

second floor back.

I am no coward, but what to make of this
head-peddling purple rascal altogether

passed my comprehension.

Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being
completely nonplussed and confounded about

the stranger, I confess I was now as much
afraid of him as if it was the devil

himself who had thus broken into my room at
the dead of night.

In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was
not game enough just then to address him,

and demand a satisfactory answer concerning
what seemed inexplicable in him.

Meanwhile, he continued the business of
undressing, and at last showed his chest

and arms.

As I live, these covered parts of him were
checkered with the same squares as his

face; his back, too, was all over the same
dark squares; he seemed to have been in a

Thirty Years' War, and just escaped from it
with a sticking-plaster shirt.

Still more, his very legs were marked, as
if a parcel of dark green frogs were

running up the trunks of young palms.

It was now quite plain that he must be some
abominable savage or other shipped aboard

of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so
landed in this Christian country.

I quaked to think of it.

A peddler of heads too--perhaps the heads
of his own brothers.

He might take a fancy to mine--heavens!
look at that tomahawk!

But there was no time for shuddering, for
now the savage went about something that

completely fascinated my attention, and
convinced me that he must indeed be a

heathen.

Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or
dreadnaught, which he had previously hung

on a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and
produced at length a curious little

deformed image with a hunch on its back,

and exactly the colour of a three days' old
Congo baby.

Remembering the embalmed head, at first I
almost thought that this black manikin was

a real baby preserved in some similar
manner.

But seeing that it was not at all limber,
and that it glistened a good deal like

polished ebony, I concluded that it must be
nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it

proved to be.

For now the savage goes up to the empty
fire-place, and removing the papered fire-

board, sets up this little hunch-backed
image, like a tenpin, between the andirons.

The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside
were very sooty, so that I thought this

fire-place made a very appropriate little
shrine or chapel for his Congo idol.

I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half
hidden image, feeling but ill at ease

meantime--to see what was next to follow.

First he takes about a double handful of
shavings out of his grego pocket, and

places them carefully before the idol; then
laying a bit of ship biscuit on top and

applying the flame from the lamp, he

kindled the shavings into a sacrificial
blaze.

Presently, after many hasty snatches into
the fire, and still hastier withdrawals of

his fingers (whereby he seemed to be
scorching them badly), he at last succeeded

in drawing out the biscuit; then blowing

off the heat and ashes a little, he made a
polite offer of it to the little negro.

But the little devil did not seem to fancy
such dry sort of fare at all; he never

moved his lips.

All these strange antics were accompanied
by still stranger guttural noises from the

devotee, who seemed to be praying in a
sing-song or else singing some pagan

psalmody or other, during which his face

twitched about in the most unnatural
manner.

At last extinguishing the fire, he took the
idol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it

again in his grego pocket as carelessly as
if he were a sportsman bagging a dead

woodcock.

All these queer proceedings increased my
uncomfortableness, and seeing him now

exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding
his business operations, and jumping into

bed with me, I thought it was high time,

now or never, before the light was put out,
to break the spell in which I had so long

been bound.
But the interval I spent in deliberating

what to say, was a fatal one.

Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he
examined the head of it for an instant, and

then holding it to the light, with his
mouth at the handle, he puffed out great

clouds of tobacco smoke.

The next moment the light was extinguished,
and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between

his teeth, sprang into bed with me.

I sang out, I could not help it now; and
giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he

began feeling me.

Stammering out something, I knew not what,
I rolled away from him against the wall,

and then conjured him, whoever or whatever
he might be, to keep quiet, and let me get

up and light the lamp again.

But his guttural responses satisfied me at
once that he but ill comprehended my

meaning.
"Who-e debel you?"--he at last said--"you

no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e."

And so saying the lighted tomahawk began
flourishing about me in the dark.

"Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin!"
shouted I.

"Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me!"

"Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me,
I kill-e!" again growled the cannibal,

while his horrid flourishings of the
tomahawk scattered the hot tobacco ashes

about me till I thought my linen would get
on fire.

But thank heaven, at that moment the
landlord came into the room light in hand,

and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.

"Don't be afraid now," said he, grinning
again, "Queequeg here wouldn't harm a hair

of your head."

"Stop your grinning," shouted I, "and why
didn't you tell me that that infernal

harpooneer was a cannibal?"

"I thought ye know'd it;--didn't I tell ye,
he was a peddlin' heads around town?--but

turn flukes again and go to sleep.

Queequeg, look here--you sabbee me, I
sabbee--you this man sleepe you--you

sabbee?"

"Me sabbee plenty"--grunted Queequeg,
puffing away at his pipe and sitting up in

bed.

"You gettee in," he added, motioning to me
with his tomahawk, and throwing the clothes

to one side.
He really did this in not only a civil but

a really kind and charitable way.

I stood looking at him a moment.
For all his tattooings he was on the whole

a clean, comely looking cannibal.

What's all this fuss I have been making
about, thought I to myself--the man's a

human being just as I am: he has just as
much reason to fear me, as I have to be

afraid of him.

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a
drunken Christian.

"Landlord," said I, "tell him to stash his
tomahawk there, or pipe, or whatever you

call it; tell him to stop smoking, in
short, and I will turn in with him.

But I don't fancy having a man smoking in
bed with me.

It's dangerous.
Besides, I ain't insured."

This being told to Queequeg, he at once
complied, and again politely motioned me to

get into bed--rolling over to one side as
much as to say--"I won't touch a leg of

ye."

"Good night, landlord," said I, "you may
go."

I turned in, and never slept better in my
life.

>

-Chapter 4.
The Counterpane.

Upon waking next morning about daylight, I
found Queequeg's arm thrown over me in the

most loving and affectionate manner.
You had almost thought I had been his wife.

The counterpane was of patchwork, full of
odd little parti-coloured squares and

triangles; and this arm of his tattooed all
over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth

of a figure, no two parts of which were of

one precise shade--owing I suppose to his
keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in

sun and shade, his shirt sleeves
irregularly rolled up at various times--

this same arm of his, I say, looked for all

the world like a strip of that same
patchwork quilt.

Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did
when I first awoke, I could hardly tell it

from the quilt, they so blended their hues
together; and it was only by the sense of

weight and pressure that I could tell that
Queequeg was hugging me.

My sensations were strange.
Let me try to explain them.

When I was a child, I well remember a
somewhat similar circumstance that befell

me; whether it was a reality or a dream, I
never could entirely settle.

The circumstance was this.

I had been cutting up some caper or other--
I think it was trying to crawl up the

chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do a
few days previous; and my stepmother who,

somehow or other, was all the time whipping

me, or sending me to bed supperless,--my
mother dragged me by the legs out of the

chimney and packed me off to bed, though it
was only two o'clock in the afternoon of

the 21st June, the longest day in the year
in our hemisphere.

I felt dreadfully.

But there was no help for it, so up stairs
I went to my little room in the third

floor, undressed myself as slowly as
possible so as to kill time, and with a

bitter sigh got between the sheets.

I lay there dismally calculating that
sixteen entire hours must elapse before I

could hope for a resurrection.
Sixteen hours in bed! the small of my back

ached to think of it.

And it was so light too; the sun shining in
at the window, and a great rattling of

coaches in the streets, and the sound of
gay voices all over the house.

I felt worse and worse--at last I got up,
dressed, and softly going down in my

stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother,
and suddenly threw myself at her feet,

beseeching her as a particular favour to

give me a good slippering for my
misbehaviour; anything indeed but

condemning me to lie abed such an
unendurable length of time.

But she was the best and most conscientious
of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my

room.

For several hours I lay there broad awake,
feeling a great deal worse than I have ever

done since, even from the greatest
subsequent misfortunes.

At last I must have fallen into a troubled
nightmare of a doze; and slowly waking from

it--half steeped in dreams--I opened my
eyes, and the before sun-lit room was now

wrapped in outer darkness.

Instantly I felt a shock running through
all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and

nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural
hand seemed placed in mine.

My arm hung over the counterpane, and the
nameless, unimaginable, silent form or

phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed
closely seated by my bed-side.

For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay
there, frozen with the most awful fears,

not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever
thinking that if I could but stir it one

single inch, the horrid spell would be
broken.

I knew not how this consciousness at last
glided away from me; but waking in the

morning, I shudderingly remembered it all,
and for days and weeks and months

afterwards I lost myself in confounding
attempts to explain the mystery.

Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle
myself with it.

Now, take away the awful fear, and my
sensations at feeling the supernatural hand

in mine were very similar, in their
strangeness, to those which I experienced

on waking up and seeing Queequeg's pagan
arm thrown round me.

But at length all the past night's events
soberly recurred, one by one, in fixed

reality, and then I lay only alive to the
comical predicament.

For though I tried to move his arm--unlock
his bridegroom clasp--yet, sleeping as he

was, he still hugged me tightly, as though
naught but death should part us twain.

I now strove to rouse him--"Queequeg!"--but
his only answer was a snore.

I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if
it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly

felt a slight scratch.

Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay
the tomahawk sleeping by the savage's side,

as if it were a hatchet-faced baby.

A pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed
here in a strange house in the broad day,

with a cannibal and a tomahawk!
"Queequeg!--in the name of goodness,

Queequeg, wake!"

At length, by dint of much wriggling, and
loud and incessant expostulations upon the

unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male
in that matrimonial sort of style, I

succeeded in extracting a grunt; and

presently, he drew back his arm, shook
himself all over like a Newfoundland dog

just from the water, and sat up in bed,
stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and

rubbing his eyes as if he did not

altogether remember how I came to be there,
though a dim consciousness of knowing

something about me seemed slowly dawning
over him.

Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having
no serious misgivings now, and bent upon

narrowly observing so curious a creature.

When, at last, his mind seemed made up
touching the character of his bedfellow,

and he became, as it were, reconciled to
the fact; he jumped out upon the floor, and

by certain signs and sounds gave me to

understand that, if it pleased me, he would
dress first and then leave me to dress

afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to
myself.

Thinks I, Queequeg, under the
circumstances, this is a very civilized

overture; but, the truth is, these savages
have an innate sense of delicacy, say what

you will; it is marvellous how essentially
polite they are.

I pay this particular compliment to
Queequeg, because he treated me with so

much civility and consideration, while I
was guilty of great rudeness; staring at

him from the bed, and watching all his

toilette motions; for the time my curiosity
getting the better of my breeding.

Nevertheless, a man like Queequeg you don't
see every day, he and his ways were well

worth unusual regarding.

He commenced dressing at top by donning his
beaver hat, a very tall one, by the by, and

then--still minus his trowsers--he hunted
up his boots.

What under the heavens he did it for, I
cannot tell, but his next movement was to

crush himself--boots in hand, and hat on--
under the bed; when, from sundry violent

gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was

hard at work booting himself; though by no
law of propriety that I ever heard of, is

any man required to be private when putting
on his boots.

But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in
the transition stage--neither caterpillar

nor butterfly.

He was just enough civilized to show off
his outlandishness in the strangest

possible manners.
His education was not yet completed.

He was an undergraduate.

If he had not been a small degree
civilized, he very probably would not have

troubled himself with boots at all; but
then, if he had not been still a savage, he

never would have dreamt of getting under
the bed to put them on.

At last, he emerged with his hat very much
dented and crushed down over his eyes, and

began creaking and limping about the room,
as if, not being much accustomed to boots,

his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide ones--

probably not made to order either--rather
pinched and tormented him at the first go

off of a bitter cold morning.

Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to
the window, and that the street being very

narrow, the house opposite commanded a
plain view into the room, and observing

more and more the indecorous figure that

Queequeg made, staving about with little
else but his hat and boots on; I begged him

as well as I could, to accelerate his
toilet somewhat, and particularly to get

into his pantaloons as soon as possible.

He complied, and then proceeded to wash
himself.

At that time in the morning any Christian
would have washed his face; but Queequeg,

to my amazement, contented himself with
restricting his ablutions to his chest,

arms, and hands.

He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up
a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand

centre table, dipped it into water and
commenced lathering his face.

I was watching to see where he kept his
razor, when lo and behold, he takes the

harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the
long wooden stock, unsheathes the head,

whets it a little on his boot, and striding

up to the bit of mirror against the wall,
begins a vigorous scraping, or rather

harpooning of his cheeks.
Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's

best cutlery with a vengeance.

Afterwards I wondered the less at this
operation when I came to know of what fine

steel the head of a harpoon is made, and
how exceedingly sharp the long straight

edges are always kept.

The rest of his toilet was soon achieved,
and he proudly marched out of the room,

wrapped up in his great pilot monkey
jacket, and sporting his harpoon like a

marshal's baton.

Chapter 5.
Breakfast.

I quickly followed suit, and descending
into the bar-room accosted the grinning

landlord very pleasantly.

I cherished no malice towards him, though
he had been skylarking with me not a little

in the matter of my bedfellow.

However, a good laugh is a mighty good
thing, and rather too scarce a good thing;

the more's the pity.

So, if any one man, in his own proper
person, afford stuff for a good joke to

anybody, let him not be backward, but let
him cheerfully allow himself to spend and

be spent in that way.

And the man that has anything bountifully
laughable about him, be sure there is more

in that man than you perhaps think for.

The bar-room was now full of the boarders
who had been dropping in the night

previous, and whom I had not as yet had a
good look at.

They were nearly all whalemen; chief mates,
and second mates, and third mates, and sea

carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea
blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship

keepers; a brown and brawny company, with

bosky beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all
wearing monkey jackets for morning gowns.

You could pretty plainly tell how long each
one had been ashore.

This young fellow's healthy cheek is like a
sun-toasted pear in hue, and would seem to

smell almost as musky; he cannot have been
three days landed from his Indian voyage.

That man next him looks a few shades
lighter; you might say a touch of satin

wood is in him.

In the complexion of a third still lingers
a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached

withal; HE doubtless has tarried whole
weeks ashore.

But who could show a cheek like Queequeg?
which, barred with various tints, seemed

like the Andes' western slope, to show
forth in one array, contrasting climates,

zone by zone.

"Grub, ho!" now cried the landlord,
flinging open a door, and in we went to

breakfast.

They say that men who have seen the world,
thereby become quite at ease in manner,

quite self-possessed in company.

Not always, though: Ledyard, the great New
England traveller, and Mungo Park, the

Scotch one; of all men, they possessed the
least assurance in the parlor.

But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in
a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or

the taking a long solitary walk on an empty
stomach, in the negro heart of Africa,

which was the sum of poor Mungo's

performances--this kind of travel, I say,
may not be the very best mode of attaining

a high social polish.
Still, for the most part, that sort of

thing is to be had anywhere.

These reflections just here are occasioned
by the circumstance that after we were all

seated at the table, and I was preparing to
hear some good stories about whaling; to my

no small surprise, nearly every man
maintained a profound silence.

And not only that, but they looked
embarrassed.

Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of
whom without the slightest bashfulness had

boarded great whales on the high seas--
entire strangers to them--and duelled them

dead without winking; and yet, here they

sat at a social breakfast table--all of the
same calling, all of kindred tastes--

looking round as sheepishly at each other
as though they had never been out of sight

of some sheepfold among the Green
Mountains.

A curious sight; these bashful bears, these
timid warrior whalemen!

But as for Queequeg--why, Queequeg sat
there among them--at the head of the table,

too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle.
To be sure I cannot say much for his

breeding.

His greatest admirer could not have
cordially justified his bringing his

harpoon into breakfast with him, and using
it there without ceremony; reaching over

the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy

of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks
towards him.

But THAT was certainly very coolly done by
him, and every one knows that in most

people's estimation, to do anything coolly
is to do it genteelly.

We will not speak of all Queequeg's
peculiarities here; how he eschewed coffee

and hot rolls, and applied his undivided
attention to beefsteaks, done rare.

Enough, that when breakfast was over he
withdrew like the rest into the public

room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was
sitting there quietly digesting and smoking

with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied
out for a stroll.

Chapter 6.
The Street.

If I had been astonished at first catching
a glimpse of so outlandish an individual as

Queequeg circulating among the polite
society of a civilized town, that

astonishment soon departed upon taking my

first daylight stroll through the streets
of New Bedford.

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any
considerable seaport will frequently offer

to view the queerest looking nondescripts
from foreign parts.

Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets,
Mediterranean mariners will sometimes

jostle the affrighted ladies.

Regent Street is not unknown to Lascars and
Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green,

live Yankees have often scared the natives.
But New Bedford beats all Water Street and

Wapping.

In these last-mentioned haunts you see only
sailors; but in New Bedford, actual

cannibals stand chatting at street corners;
savages outright; many of whom yet carry on

their bones unholy flesh.

It makes a stranger stare.

But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs,
Erromanggoans, Pannangians, and

Brighggians, and, besides the wild
specimens of the whaling-craft which

unheeded reel about the streets, you will

see other sights still more curious,
certainly more comical.

There weekly arrive in this town scores of
green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all

athirst for gain and glory in the fishery.

They are mostly young, of stalwart frames;
fellows who have felled forests, and now

seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-
lance.

Many are as green as the Green Mountains
whence they came.

In some things you would think them but a
few hours old.

Look there! that chap strutting round the
corner.

He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed
coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and

sheath-knife.

Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a
bombazine cloak.

No town-bred dandy will compare with a
country-bred one--I mean a downright

bumpkin dandy--a fellow that, in the dog-
days, will mow his two acres in buckskin

gloves for fear of tanning his hands.

Now when a country dandy like this takes it
into his head to make a distinguished

reputation, and joins the great whale-
fishery, you should see the comical things

he does upon reaching the seaport.

In bespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders
bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to

his canvas trowsers.

Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst
those straps in the first howling gale,

when thou art driven, straps, buttons, and
all, down the throat of the tempest.

But think not that this famous town has
only harpooneers, cannibals, and bumpkins

to show her visitors.
Not at all.

Still New Bedford is a queer place.

Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract
of land would this day perhaps have been in

as howling condition as the coast of
Labrador.

As it is, parts of her back country are
enough to frighten one, they look so bony.

The town itself is perhaps the dearest
place to live in, in all New England.

It is a land of oil, true enough: but not
like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and

wine.

The streets do not run with milk; nor in
the spring-time do they pave them with

fresh eggs.

Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all
America will you find more patrician-like

houses; parks and gardens more opulent,
than in New Bedford.

Whence came they? how planted upon this
once scraggy scoria of a country?

Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical
harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and

your question will be answered.

Yes; all these brave houses and flowery
gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific,

and Indian oceans.

One and all, they were harpooned and
dragged up hither from the bottom of the

sea.
Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like

that?

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give
whales for dowers to their daughters, and

portion off their nieces with a few
porpoises a-piece.

You must go to New Bedford to see a
brilliant wedding; for, they say, they have

reservoirs of oil in every house, and every
night recklessly burn their lengths in

spermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see;
full of fine maples--long avenues of green

and gold.

And in August, high in air, the beautiful
and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-

wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering
upright cones of congregated blossoms.

So omnipotent is art; which in many a
district of New Bedford has superinduced

bright terraces of flowers upon the barren
refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's

final day.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom
like their own red roses.

But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the
fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial

as sunlight in the seventh heavens.

Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye
cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me

the young girls breathe such musk, their
sailor sweethearts smell them miles off

shore, as though they were drawing nigh the

odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic
sands.

Chapter 7.
The Chapel.

In this same New Bedford there stands a
Whaleman's Chapel, and few are the moody

fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian
Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday

visit to the spot.

I am sure that I did not.
Returning from my first morning stroll, I

again sallied out upon this special errand.
The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold,

to driving sleet and mist.

Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the
cloth called bearskin, I fought my way

against the stubborn storm.

Entering, I found a small scattered
congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives

and widows.
A muffled silence reigned, only broken at

times by the shrieks of the storm.

Each silent worshipper seemed purposely
sitting apart from the other, as if each

silent grief were insular and
incommunicable.

The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there
these silent islands of men and women sat

steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets,
with black borders, masoned into the wall

on either side the pulpit.

Three of them ran something like the
following, but I do not pretend to quote:--

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who,
at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard,

Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia,
November 1st, 1836.

THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS
SISTER.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS
ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH

MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the
boats' crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were

towed out of sight by a Whale, On the Off-

shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December 31st,
1839.

THIS MARBLE Is here placed by their
surviving SHIPMATES.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN
EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows of his boat

was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of
Japan, AUGUST 3d, 1833.

THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS
WIDOW.

Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed
hat and jacket, I seated myself near the

door, and turning sideways was surprised to
see Queequeg near me.

Affected by the solemnity of the scene,
there was a wondering gaze of incredulous

curiosity in his countenance.

This savage was the only person present who
seemed to notice my entrance; because he

was the only one who could not read, and,
therefore, was not reading those frigid

inscriptions on the wall.

Whether any of the relatives of the seamen
whose names appeared there were now among

the congregation, I knew not; but so many
are the unrecorded accidents in the

fishery, and so plainly did several women

present wear the countenance if not the
trappings of some unceasing grief, that I

feel sure that here before me were
assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts

the sight of those bleak tablets

sympathetically caused the old wounds to
bleed afresh.

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the
green grass; who standing among flowers can

say--here, HERE lies my beloved; ye know
not the desolation that broods in bosoms

like these.

What bitter blanks in those black-bordered
marbles which cover no ashes!

What despair in those immovable
inscriptions!

What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities
in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all

Faith, and refuse resurrections to the
beings who have placelessly perished

without a grave.

As well might those tablets stand in the
cave of Elephanta as here.

In what census of living creatures, the
dead of mankind are included; why it is

that a universal proverb says of them, that
they tell no tales, though containing more

secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is

that to his name who yesterday departed for
the other world, we prefix so significant

and infidel a word, and yet do not thus
entitle him, if he but embarks for the

remotest Indies of this living earth; why

the Life Insurance Companies pay death-
forfeitures upon immortals; in what

eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly,
hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who

died sixty round centuries ago; how it is

that we still refuse to be comforted for
those who we nevertheless maintain are

dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the
living so strive to hush all the dead;

wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a
tomb will terrify a whole city.

All these things are not without their
meanings.

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the
tombs, and even from these dead doubts she

gathers her most vital hope.

It needs scarcely to be told, with what
feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage,

I regarded those marble tablets, and by the
murky light of that darkened, doleful day

read the fate of the whalemen who had gone
before me.

Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine.
But somehow I grew merry again.

Delightful inducements to embark, fine
chance for promotion, it seems--aye, a

stove boat will make me an immortal by
brevet.

Yes, there is death in this business of
whaling--a speechlessly quick chaotic

bundling of a man into Eternity.
But what then?

Methinks we have hugely mistaken this
matter of Life and Death.

Methinks that what they call my shadow here
on earth is my true substance.

Methinks that in looking at things
spiritual, we are too much like oysters

observing the sun through the water, and
thinking that thick water the thinnest of

air.

Methinks my body is but the lees of my
better being.

In fact take my body who will, take it I
say, it is not me.

And therefore three cheers for Nantucket;
and come a stove boat and stove body when

they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself
cannot.

>

-Chapter 8.
The Pulpit.

I had not been seated very long ere a man
of a certain venerable robustness entered;

immediately as the storm-pelted door flew
back upon admitting him, a quick regardful

eyeing of him by all the congregation,

sufficiently attested that this fine old
man was the chaplain.

Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so
called by the whalemen, among whom he was a

very great favourite.

He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in
his youth, but for many years past had

dedicated his life to the ministry.

At the time I now write of, Father Mapple
was in the hardy winter of a healthy old

age; that sort of old age which seems
merging into a second flowering youth, for

among all the fissures of his wrinkles,

there shone certain mild gleams of a newly
developing bloom--the spring verdure

peeping forth even beneath February's snow.

No one having previously heard his history,
could for the first time behold Father

Mapple without the utmost interest, because
there were certain engrafted clerical

peculiarities about him, imputable to that
adventurous maritime life he had led.

When he entered I observed that he carried
no umbrella, and certainly had not come in

his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran
down with melting sleet, and his great

pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to drag

him to the floor with the weight of the
water it had absorbed.

However, hat and coat and overshoes were
one by one removed, and hung up in a little

space in an adjacent corner; when, arrayed
in a decent suit, he quietly approached the

pulpit.

Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a
very lofty one, and since a regular stairs

to such a height would, by its long angle
with the floor, seriously contract the

already small area of the chapel, the

architect, it seemed, had acted upon the
hint of Father Mapple, and finished the

pulpit without a stairs, substituting a
perpendicular side ladder, like those used

in mounting a ship from a boat at sea.

The wife of a whaling captain had provided
the chapel with a handsome pair of red

worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which,
being itself nicely headed, and stained

with a mahogany colour, the whole

contrivance, considering what manner of
chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad

taste.

Halting for an instant at the foot of the
ladder, and with both hands grasping the

ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father
Mapple cast a look upwards, and then with a

truly sailor-like but still reverential

dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the
steps as if ascending the main-top of his

vessel.

The perpendicular parts of this side
ladder, as is usually the case with

swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope,
only the rounds were of wood, so that at

every step there was a joint.

At my first glimpse of the pulpit, it had
not escaped me that however convenient for

a ship, these joints in the present
instance seemed unnecessary.

For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple
after gaining the height, slowly turn

round, and stooping over the pulpit,
deliberately drag up the ladder step by

step, till the whole was deposited within,

leaving him impregnable in his little
Quebec.

I pondered some time without fully
comprehending the reason for this.

Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide
reputation for sincerity and sanctity, that

I could not suspect him of courting
notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage.

No, thought I, there must be some sober
reason for this thing; furthermore, it must

symbolize something unseen.

Can it be, then, that by that act of
physical isolation, he signifies his

spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all
outward worldly ties and connexions?

Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine
of the word, to the faithful man of God,

this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing
stronghold--a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a

perennial well of water within the walls.

But the side ladder was not the only
strange feature of the place, borrowed from

the chaplain's former sea-farings.

Between the marble cenotaphs on either hand
of the pulpit, the wall which formed its

back was adorned with a large painting
representing a gallant ship beating against

a terrible storm off a lee coast of black
rocks and snowy breakers.

But high above the flying scud and dark-
rolling clouds, there floated a little isle

of sunlight, from which beamed forth an
angel's face; and this bright face shed a

distinct spot of radiance upon the ship's

tossed deck, something like that silver
plate now inserted into the Victory's plank

where Nelson fell.

"Ah, noble ship," the angel seemed to say,
"beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and

bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun is
breaking through; the clouds are rolling

off--serenest azure is at hand."

Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace
of the same sea-taste that had achieved the

ladder and the picture.

Its panelled front was in the likeness of a
ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible

rested on a projecting piece of scroll
work, fashioned after a ship's fiddle-

headed beak.

What could be more full of meaning?--for
the pulpit is ever this earth's foremost

part; all the rest comes in its rear; the
pulpit leads the world.

From thence it is the storm of God's quick
wrath is first descried, and the bow must

bear the earliest brunt.

From thence it is the God of breezes fair
or foul is first invoked for favourable

winds.

Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out,
and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit

is its prow.

Chapter 9.
The Sermon.

Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of
unassuming authority ordered the scattered

people to condense.
"Starboard gangway, there! side away to

larboard--larboard gangway to starboard!

Midships! midships!"
There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots

among the benches, and a still slighter
shuffling of women's shoes, and all was

quiet again, and every eye on the preacher.

He paused a little; then kneeling in the
pulpit's bows, folded his large brown hands

across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes,
and offered a prayer so deeply devout that

he seemed kneeling and praying at the
bottom of the sea.

This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like
the continual tolling of a bell in a ship

that is foundering at sea in a fog--in such
tones he commenced reading the following

hymn; but changing his manner towards the

concluding stanzas, burst forth with a
pealing exultation and joy--

"The ribs and terrors in the whale,
Arched over me a dismal gloom,

While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by,
And lift me deepening down to doom.

"I saw the opening maw of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there;

Which none but they that feel can tell--
Oh, I was plunging to despair.

"In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,

He bowed his ear to my complaints--
No more the whale did me confine.

"With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin borne;

Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.

"My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;

I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power."

Nearly all joined in singing this hymn,
which swelled high above the howling of the

storm.

A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly
turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at

last, folding his hand down upon the proper
page, said: "Beloved shipmates, clinch the

last verse of the first chapter of Jonah--

'And God had prepared a great fish to
swallow up Jonah.'"

"Shipmates, this book, containing only four
chapters--four yarns--is one of the

smallest strands in the mighty cable of the
Scriptures.

Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's
deep sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson

to us is this prophet!
What a noble thing is that canticle in the

fish's belly!

How billow-like and boisterously grand!
We feel the floods surging over us; we

sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the
waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the

sea is about us!

But WHAT is this lesson that the book of
Jonah teaches?

Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a
lesson to us all as sinful men, and a

lesson to me as a pilot of the living God.

As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all,
because it is a story of the sin, hard-

heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the
swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and

finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah.

As with all sinners among men, the sin of
this son of Amittai was in his wilful

disobedience of the command of God--never
mind now what that command was, or how

conveyed--which he found a hard command.

But all the things that God would have us
do are hard for us to do--remember that--

and hence, he oftener commands us than
endeavors to persuade.

And if we obey God, we must disobey
ourselves; and it is in this disobeying

ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying
God consists.

"With this sin of disobedience in him,
Jonah still further flouts at God, by

seeking to flee from Him.

He thinks that a ship made by men will
carry him into countries where God does not

reign, but only the Captains of this earth.
He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and

seeks a ship that's bound for Tarshish.

There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded
meaning here.

By all accounts Tarshish could have been no
other city than the modern Cadiz.

That's the opinion of learned men.

And where is Cadiz, shipmates?
Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from

Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed
in those ancient days, when the Atlantic

was an almost unknown sea.

Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates,
is on the most easterly coast of the

Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish or
Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the

westward from that, just outside the
Straits of Gibraltar.

See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah
sought to flee world-wide from God?

Miserable man!

Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all
scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye,

skulking from his God; prowling among the
shipping like a vile burglar hastening to

cross the seas.

So disordered, self-condemning is his look,
that had there been policemen in those

days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of
something wrong, had been arrested ere he

touched a deck.

How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage,
not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,--no

friends accompany him to the wharf with
their adieux.

At last, after much dodging search, he
finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last

items of her cargo; and as he steps on
board to see its Captain in the cabin, all

the sailors for the moment desist from

hoisting in the goods, to mark the
stranger's evil eye.

Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to
look all ease and confidence; in vain

essays his wretched smile.

Strong intuitions of the man assure the
mariners he can be no innocent.

In their gamesome but still serious way,
one whispers to the other--"Jack, he's

robbed a widow;" or, "Joe, do you mark him;
he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess

he's the adulterer that broke jail in old

Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing
murderers from Sodom."

Another runs to read the bill that's stuck
against the spile upon the wharf to which

the ship is moored, offering five hundred
gold coins for the apprehension of a

parricide, and containing a description of
his person.

He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill;
while all his sympathetic shipmates now

crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their
hands upon him.

Frighted Jonah trembles, and summoning all
his boldness to his face, only looks so

much the more a coward.
He will not confess himself suspected; but

that itself is strong suspicion.

So he makes the best of it; and when the
sailors find him not to be the man that is

advertised, they let him pass, and he
descends into the cabin.

"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his
busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers

for the Customs--'Who's there?'
Oh! how that harmless question mangles

Jonah!

For the instant he almost turns to flee
again.

But he rallies.
'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish;

how soon sail ye, sir?'

Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up
to Jonah, though the man now stands before

him; but no sooner does he hear that hollow
voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance.

'We sail with the next coming tide,' at
last he slowly answered, still intently

eyeing him.
'No sooner, sir?'--'Soon enough for any

honest man that goes a passenger.'

Ha! Jonah, that's another stab.
But he swiftly calls away the Captain from

that scent.

'I'll sail with ye,'--he says,--'the
passage money how much is that?--I'll pay

now.'

For it is particularly written, shipmates,
as if it were a thing not to be overlooked

in this history, 'that he paid the fare
thereof' ere the craft did sail.

And taken with the context, this is full of
meaning.

"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one
whose discernment detects crime in any, but

whose cupidity exposes it only in the
penniless.

In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its
way can travel freely, and without a

passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is
stopped at all frontiers.

So Jonah's Captain prepares to test the
length of Jonah's purse, ere he judge him

openly.
He charges him thrice the usual sum; and

it's assented to.

Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a
fugitive; but at the same time resolves to

help a flight that paves its rear with
gold.

Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse,
prudent suspicions still molest the

Captain.
He rings every coin to find a counterfeit.

Not a forger, any way, he mutters; and
Jonah is put down for his passage.

'Point out my state-room, Sir,' says Jonah
now, 'I'm travel-weary; I need sleep.'

'Thou lookest like it,' says the Captain,
'there's thy room.'

Jonah enters, and would lock the door, but
the lock contains no key.

Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the
Captain laughs lowly to himself, and

mutters something about the doors of
convicts' cells being never allowed to be

locked within.

All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah
throws himself into his berth, and finds

the little state-room ceiling almost
resting on his forehead.

The air is close, and Jonah gasps.

Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too,
beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels

the heralding presentiment of that stifling
hour, when the whale shall hold him in the

smallest of his bowels' wards.

"Screwed at its axis against the side, a
swinging lamp slightly oscillates in

Jonah's room; and the ship, heeling over
towards the wharf with the weight of the

last bales received, the lamp, flame and

all, though in slight motion, still
maintains a permanent obliquity with

reference to the room; though, in truth,
infallibly straight itself, it but made

obvious the false, lying levels among which
it hung.

The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as
lying in his berth his tormented eyes roll

round the place, and this thus far
successful fugitive finds no refuge for his

restless glance.

But that contradiction in the lamp more and
more appals him.

The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are
all awry.

'Oh! so my conscience hangs in me!' he
groans, 'straight upwards, so it burns; but

the chambers of my soul are all in
crookedness!'

"Like one who after a night of drunken
revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but

with conscience yet pricking him, as the
plungings of the Roman race-horse but so

much the more strike his steel tags into

him; as one who in that miserable plight
still turns and turns in giddy anguish,

praying God for annihilation until the fit
be passed; and at last amid the whirl of

woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over

him, as over the man who bleeds to death,
for conscience is the wound, and there's

naught to staunch it; so, after sore
wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of

ponderous misery drags him drowning down to
sleep.

"And now the time of tide has come; the
ship casts off her cables; and from the

deserted wharf the uncheered ship for
Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea.

That ship, my friends, was the first of
recorded smugglers! the contraband was

Jonah.
But the sea rebels; he will not bear the

wicked burden.

A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like
to break.

But now when the boatswain calls all hands
to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars

are clattering overboard; when the wind is
shrieking, and the men are yelling, and

every plank thunders with trampling feet

right over Jonah's head; in all this raging
tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep.

He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels
not the reeling timbers, and little hears

he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty
whale, which even now with open mouth is

cleaving the seas after him.

Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into
the sides of the ship--a berth in the cabin

as I have taken it, and was fast asleep.

But the frightened master comes to him, and
shrieks in his dead ear, 'What meanest

thou, O, sleeper! arise!'

Startled from his lethargy by that direful
cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and

stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to
look out upon the sea.

But at that moment he is sprung upon by a
panther billow leaping over the bulwarks.

Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship,
and finding no speedy vent runs roaring

fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh
to drowning while yet afloat.

And ever, as the white moon shows her
affrighted face from the steep gullies in

the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees
the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward,

but soon beat downward again towards the
tormented deep.

"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through
his soul.

In all his cringing attitudes, the God-
fugitive is now too plainly known.

The sailors mark him; more and more certain
grow their suspicions of him, and at last,

fully to test the truth, by referring the
whole matter to high Heaven, they fall to

casting lots, to see for whose cause this
great tempest was upon them.

The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then
how furiously they mob him with their

questions.

'What is thine occupation?
Whence comest thou?

Thy country?
What people?

But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of
poor Jonah.

The eager mariners but ask him who he is,
and where from; whereas, they not only

receive an answer to those questions, but
likewise another answer to a question not

put by them, but the unsolicited answer is

forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God
that is upon him.

"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries--and then--'I
fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath

made the sea and the dry land!'

Fear him, O Jonah?
Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God

THEN!

Straightway, he now goes on to make a full
confession; whereupon the mariners became

more and more appalled, but still are
pitiful.

For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God
for mercy, since he but too well knew the

darkness of his deserts,--when wretched
Jonah cries out to them to take him and

cast him forth into the sea, for he knew

that for HIS sake this great tempest was
upon them; they mercifully turn from him,

and seek by other means to save the ship.

But all in vain; the indignant gale howls
louder; then, with one hand raised

invokingly to God, with the other they not
unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.

"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor
and dropped into the sea; when instantly an

oily calmness floats out from the east, and
the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the

gale with him, leaving smooth water behind.

He goes down in the whirling heart of such
a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds

the moment when he drops seething into the
yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale

shoots-to all his ivory teeth, like so many
white bolts, upon his prison.

Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out of the
fish's belly.

But observe his prayer, and learn a weighty
lesson.

For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep
and wail for direct deliverance.

He feels that his dreadful punishment is
just.

He leaves all his deliverance to God,
contenting himself with this, that spite of

all his pains and pangs, he will still look
towards His holy temple.

And here, shipmates, is true and faithful
repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but

grateful for punishment.

And how pleasing to God was this conduct in
Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance

of him from the sea and the whale.

Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you
to be copied for his sin but I do place him

before you as a model for repentance.
Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent

of it like Jonah."

While he was speaking these words, the
howling of the shrieking, slanting storm

without seemed to add new power to the
preacher, who, when describing Jonah's sea-

storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself.

His deep chest heaved as with a ground-
swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring

elements at work; and the thunders that
rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and

the light leaping from his eye, made all

his simple hearers look on him with a quick
fear that was strange to them.

There now came a lull in his look, as he
silently turned over the leaves of the Book

once more; and, at last, standing
motionless, with closed eyes, for the

moment, seemed communing with God and
himself.

But again he leaned over towards the
people, and bowing his head lowly, with an

aspect of the deepest yet manliest
humility, he spake these words:

"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon
you; both his hands press upon me.

I have read ye by what murky light may be
mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all

sinners; and therefore to ye, and still
more to me, for I am a greater sinner than

ye.

And now how gladly would I come down from
this mast-head and sit on the hatches there

where you sit, and listen as you listen,
while some one of you reads ME that other

and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches
to ME, as a pilot of the living God.

How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or
speaker of true things, and bidden by the

Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the
ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled

at the hostility he should raise, fled from

his mission, and sought to escape his duty
and his God by taking ship at Joppa.

But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never
reached.

As we have seen, God came upon him in the
whale, and swallowed him down to living

gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings
tore him along 'into the midst of the

seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him

ten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds
were wrapped about his head,' and all the

watery world of woe bowled over him.

Yet even then beyond the reach of any
plummet--'out of the belly of hell'--when

the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost
bones, even then, God heard the engulphed,

repenting prophet when he cried.

Then God spake unto the fish; and from the
shuddering cold and blackness of the sea,

the whale came breeching up towards the
warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights

of air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonah

upon the dry land;' when the word of the
Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised

and beaten--his ears, like two sea-shells,
still multitudinously murmuring of the

ocean--Jonah did the Almighty's bidding.

And what was that, shipmates?
To preach the Truth to the face of

Falsehood!
That was it!

"This, shipmates, this is that other
lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living

God who slights it.
Woe to him whom this world charms from

Gospel duty!

Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the
waters when God has brewed them into a

gale!
Woe to him who seeks to please rather than

to appal!

Woe to him whose good name is more to him
than goodness!

Woe to him who, in this world, courts not
dishonour!

Woe to him who would not be true, even
though to be false were salvation!

Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot
Paul has it, while preaching to others is

himself a castaway!"

He dropped and fell away from himself for a
moment; then lifting his face to them

again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he
cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm,--"But

oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of

every woe, there is a sure delight; and
higher the top of that delight, than the

bottom of the woe is deep.
Is not the main-truck higher than the

kelson is low?

Delight is to him--a far, far upward, and
inward delight--who against the proud gods

and commodores of this earth, ever stands
forth his own inexorable self.

Delight is to him whose strong arms yet
support him, when the ship of this base

treacherous world has gone down beneath
him.

Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in
the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys

all sin though he pluck it out from under
the robes of Senators and Judges.

Delight,--top-gallant delight is to him,
who acknowledges no law or lord, but the

Lord his God, and is only a patriot to
heaven.

Delight is to him, whom all the waves of
the billows of the seas of the boisterous

mob can never shake from this sure Keel of
the Ages.

And eternal delight and deliciousness will
be his, who coming to lay him down, can say

with his final breath--O Father!--chiefly
known to me by Thy rod--mortal or immortal,

here I die.

I have striven to be Thine, more than to be
this world's, or mine own.

Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to
Thee; for what is man that he should live

out the lifetime of his God?"

He said no more, but slowly waving a
benediction, covered his face with his

hands, and so remained kneeling, till all
the people had departed, and he was left

alone in the place.

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