Queequeg there quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the
benediction some time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his
feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face
that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a
jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself
in his heathenish way.
But being now interrupted,
he put up the image; and pretty soon, going to the table, took up a large
book there, and placing it on his lap began counting the pages with
deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth page—as I fancied—stopping a
moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn
gurgling whistle of astonishment. He would then begin again at the next
fifty; seeming to commence at number one each time, as though he could not
count more than fifty, and it was only by such a large number of fifties
being found together, that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was
excited.
With much interest I sat watching him. Savage
though he was, and hideously marred about the face—at least to my
taste—his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means
disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly
tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in
his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a
spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was
a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could
not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never
had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his
forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more
expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but
certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem
ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in
the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating
slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two
long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington
cannibalistically developed.
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQj9cFLPK6TPvCjI0o4t92hyH999l3XypfpVAbRsj2G4jC-v6_bV2iK6fkdyaZCu2KAr6rhxJMKf16E8lYHw1xmbI9W5yIN_UwZojnb1xyULF_K0njOyGE8GobqIdZwZFeQ5Z74YdmvyI/s1600/cars_3.jpg">
alt="Spotify launching Top 50 charts"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQj9cFLPK6TPvCjI0o4t92hyH999l3XypfpVAbRsj2G4jC-v6_bV2iK6fkdyaZCu2KAr6rhxJMKf16E8lYHw1xmbI9W5yIN_UwZojnb1xyULF_K0njOyGE8GobqIdZwZFeQ5Z74YdmvyI/s1600/cars_3.jpg"
/>