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deliberate coolness and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was
specially qualified to excel in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands
upright in the tossed bow of the flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the
towing whale is forty feet ahead. Handling the long lance lightly,
glancing twice or thrice along its length to see if it be exactly
straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up the coil of the warp in one hand,
so as to secure its free end in his grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed.
Then holding the lance full before his waistband's middle, he levels it at
the whale; when, covering him with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end
in his hand, thereby elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly
balanced upon his palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of
a juggler, balancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid,
nameless impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the
foaming distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of
sparkling water, he now spouts red blood.
"That
drove the spigot out of him!" cried Stubb. "'Tis July's immortal Fourth;
all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it were old Orleans whiskey,
or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then, Tashtego, lad, I'd have
ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we'd drink round it! Yea, verily, hearts
alive, we'd brew choice punch in the spread of his spout-hole there, and
from that live punch-bowl quaff the living stuff."
repeated, the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in
skilful leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is
slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and mutely
watches the monster die.
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That for six thousandimageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em;
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years—and no one knows how many millions of ages before—the great whales
should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying
the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots;
and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been
close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and
spoutings—that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed
minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clock P.M. of this
sixteenth day of December, A.D. 1851), it should still remain a problem,
whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but
vapour—this is surely a noteworthy thing.
Let us,
then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items contingent.
Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny
tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the
element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a cod might live a
century, and never once raise its head above the surface. But owing to his
marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human
being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the
open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for his periodical visits to the
upper world. But he cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth, for,
in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm Whale's mouth is buried at least eight
feet beneath the surface; and what is still more, his windpipe has no
connexion with his mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; and
this is on the top of his head.
If I say, that in
any creature breathing is only a function indispensable to vitality,
inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a certain element, which being
subsequently brought into contact with the blood imparts to the blood its
vivifying principle, I do not think I shall err; though I may possibly use
some superfluous scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if all
the blood in a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up
his nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time. That is to
say, he would then live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this
is precisely the case with the whale, who systematically lives, by
intervals, his full hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a
single breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for,
remember, he has no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side
of his spine he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of
vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are
completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more, a
thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in
him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus
supply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs. The
anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the
supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more cogent
to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of that
leviathan in HAVING HIS SPOUTINGS OUT, as the fishermen phrase it. This is
what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale
will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his
other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy
times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he rises again, he
will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if
after he fetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will
be always dodging up again to make good his regular allowance of air. And
not till those seventy breaths are told, will he finally go down to stay
out his full term below. Remark, however, that in different individuals
these rates are different; but in any one they are alike. Now, why should
the whale thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to
replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious is
it, too, that this necessity for the whale's rising exposes him to all the
fatal hazards of the chase. For not by hook or by net could this vast
leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight.
Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great necessities that
strike the victory to thee!