land? does his crew drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a
long time, now, the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring,
and needs no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in
the whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be
transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries no
cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a whole
lake's contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with
utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She
carries years' water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which, when
three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to drink
before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from the
Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may have
gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score of ports,
the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one grain of
soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like themselves. So
that did you carry them the news that another flood had come; they would
only answer—"Well, boys, here's the ark!"
Now, as many Sperm
Whales had been captured off the western coast of Java, in the near
vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of the ground,
roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an excellent spot
for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more and more upon Java
Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep wide
awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the
starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed
in the air, yet not a single jet was descried. Almost renouncing all
thought of falling in with any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh
entered the straits, when the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft,
and ere long a spectacle of singular magnificence saluted us.
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But here be it
premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with which of late they
have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm Whales, instead of almost
invariably sailing in small detached companies, as in former times, are
now frequently met with in extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a
multitude, that it would almost seem as if numerous nations of them had
sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual assistance and protection. To
this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be
imputed the circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds, you may
now sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without being greeted by
a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems
thousands on thousands.
Broad on both bows, at the distance of
some two or three miles, and forming a great semicircle, embracing one
half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets were
up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air. Unlike the straight
perpendicular twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, fall
over in two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the
single forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled
bush of white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.
of the sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into the
air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like
the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried of a
balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.
As
marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains,
accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in
their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain;
even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through
the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and
swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.
handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their yet
suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that chased
through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy into the
Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their number. And who
could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby Dick himself might
not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped white-elephant in the
coronation procession of the Siamese! So with stun-sail piled on
stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans before us; when, of a
sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention to
something in our wake.