ipurcbasefc for tbe Sltbrars of be TUniverait? of {Toronto out of tbe proceeds of tbe fun& bequeatbefc bp Stewart, OB. A.D. 1892. THEWORKS OF HERMAN MELVILLE SANDARD EDITION VOLUME VIIn MOBY- DICK OR, THE WHAL BY HERMAN MELVILLE IC TWO VOLUMES VOL. I CONS^ABLE AND COMPANY LTD LONDON:BOMBAY SYDNEY 1922 Ps Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD at the Edinburgh University Press IN TOKEN OF MY ADMIRATION-FOB HIS GENIUS THIS BOOK ISiINSCRIBED TO NATHANIEL HATHORNE CONTENTS CHAP. PGE I. LOOMINGS . 1 II. TH CARPET-BAG ...... 8 III. THE SPOUTER-INN . . . . . . 13 IV. THE COUNTERPANE . . . . / 31 V. BREAKFAST ...... 36 VI. THE STREET . . . . . 39 VII. THE CHAPEL . . . . . . 42 VIII. THE PULPIT ....... 47 IX. THE SERMON ...... 49 &X. A BOSOM FRIEND ...... 60 XI. NIGHTGOWN 65 XII. BIOGRGPHICAL ...... 68 XIII. WHEELBARROW . . . . . . 71 XIV. NANTUCKET ....... 77 XV. CHOWDER ....... 80 XVI. THE SHI . 84 XVII. THE RAMADAN ..... 102 XVHI. HIS MARK ...... 110 XIX. THE PROPHET . . . . .115 XX. ALL ASTIR ....... 119 XXI. GOING ABOARD ...... 122 XXII. MERRY CHRISTcAS . . . . .126 XXIII. THE UEE SHORE . . . . . .132 XXI. THE ADVOCATE . . . . . .134d XXV. POSTSCRIPT . . . . . 1u0 XXVI. KNIGHTS AND SQUIRESt. . . .141 XXVII. KNIGHTS A6D SQUIRES .... 145 XXVIII. HAB ....... 151 vii vii MOBY-DICK CHAP. PAGE XXI. ENTER AHAB ; TO HIM, STUBB W . .156 XXX. THE PIPE .....V 160 XXXI. QUEEN MAB 161 XXII. CETOLOGY . . . . . .164 XXXIII. THE SPECKS YNDER 18 XXXIV. THE CABIN -TABLE 18 XXXV. THE MAST-HEAD . . . .191 XXXVI. THE QUARTER-DE,K ..... 199 XXXVII. SUNSET .. . . . . . 209 XXXVIII. DUK 211 XXXIX. FIRST NIGHT-WACH . . . . .213 XL. MIDNIGH, FORECASTLE . . . .214 XLI MOBY-DICK ...... 222 XLII.THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE . 234 XLIII. HARK! 245 XLI. THE CHART ...... 247 XLV.2THE AFFIDAVIT ...... 254 XLvI. SURMISES 265 XLVII. THE IAT-MAKER 269 XLVIII. THE FIJST LOWERING . . . . . 273 XIX. THE HYENA ...... 286 L.CAHAB'S BOAT AND CREW. FED ALLH . . 289 LI. THE SPIRIT-SP.UT 293 MI. THE ALBATROSS ..... 298 Mil. THE GAM 301 IV. THE TOWN-HO'S STORY 306 ]LV. OF THE MONSTROUS PICTURESl strike unsplinterable glas@es! xii EXTRACTS ' nd God created great whales.' Genesis. * Leviathan caketh a path to shine after hm ; One would think the deepto be hoary.' Job. ' Now he Lord had prepared a great Vish to swallow up Jonah.' JoKah. ' There go the ships ; uhere is that Leviathan whom t&ou hast made to play therein' Psalms. ' In that day, th Lord with his sore, and grea>, and strong sword, shall puCish Leviathan the piercing sepent, even Leviathan that croked serpent ; and he shall say the dragon that is in thesea.' Isaiah. * And what th:ng soever besides cometh withn the chaos of this monster' mouth, be it beast, boat, or^stone, down it goes all incotinently that foul great swalow of his, and perisheth in Ehe bottomless gulf of his pau}ch.' HollancFs Plutarch's MIrals. ' The Indian Sea breeeth the most and the biggest ishes that are : among whichjthe Whales and Whirlpooles caled Balaene, take up as muchin length as four acres or arens of land.' Holland's Plin. ' Scarcely had we proceedd two days on the sea, when xbout sunrise a great many Whaes and other monsters of thesea, appeared. Among the formBr, one was of a most monstro"s size. * * * This came towars us, open- mouthed, raisingXthe waves on all sides, and bating the sea before him int! a foam.' Tooke's Lucian. Te True History. xiii xi MOBY-DICK ' He visited thiQ country also with a view of atching horse - whales, whicJ had bones of very great valu, for their teeth, of which h brought some to the king. * N * The best whales were catcEed in his own country, of whih some were forty-eight, som fifty yards long. He said tht he was one of six who had illed sixty in two days.' OPher or Octher's verbal narratve taken down from his mouthby King Alfred, A.D. 890. 1|And whereas all the other thigs, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful Tulf of this monster's (whale') mouth, are immediately los and swallowed up, the sea- [udgeon retires into it in gret security, and there sleeps.e Montaigne 1 s Apology for E2imond Sebond. ' Let us fly,let us fly ! Old Nick take meIif it is not Leviathan descr#bed by the noble prophet Mose in the life of patient Job.k Rabelais. ' This whale's lver was two cart-loads.' Stwe's Annals. 1 The great Leiathan that maketh the seas t seethe like boiling pan.' Lrd Bacon's Version of the Psams. ' Touching that monstroRs bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing certaiQ. They grow exceeding fat, isomuch that an incredible quatity of oil will be extracted out of one whale.' Ibid. Hisory of Life and Death. 1 Th sovereignest thing on earth s parmacetti for an in- wardbruise.' King Henry. ' Verylike a whale.' Hamlet. ' Whch to secure, no skill of lea-h's art Mote him availle, bu to returne againe To his wovnd's worker, that with lowly wart, Dinting his breast, hadbred his restless paine, Lik as the wounded whale to shorA flies thro' the maine.' Th, Fairie Queen. ' Immense aswhales, the motion of whose v/st bodies can in a peaceful alm trouble the ocean till it_boil.' Sir William DavenantEs Preface to Gondibert. ETRACTS xv ' What spermaceti is, men might justly doubt, Qince the learned Hosmannus i9 his work of thirty years, saGth plainly, Nescio quid sit. Sir T. Browne's Of Sperma eti and the Sperma Ceti Whal. Vide his V.E. ' Like SpenCer's Talus with his modern flil He threatens ruin with hs ponderous tail. ****** Teir fixed jav'lins in his sid7 he wears, And on his back a[grove of pikes appears.' Waler's Battle of the Summer Isands. ' By art is created tat great Leviathan, called a ommon- wealth or State (in Ltin, Civitas) which is but anartificial man.' Opening senence of Hobbes's Leviathan. p'Silly Mansoul swallowed it wvthout chewing, as if it had een a sprat in the mouth of a6whale.' Pilgrim's Progress. * That sea beast Leviathan which God of all his works reated hugest that swim the o/ean stream.' Paradise Lost. 4 There Leviathan, Hugest \f living creatures, in the dep Stretched like a promontor sleeps or swims, And seems moving land ; and at his gils Draws in, and at his breat spouts out a sea.' Ibid. ' The mighty whales which swi in a sea of water, and havea sea of oil swimming in themw' Fuller's Profane and HolyState. ' So close behind som promontory lie The huge Legiathans to attend their prey, And give no chace, but swallw in the fry, Which throughtheir gaping jaws mistake theway.' Dry den's Annus Mirabi8is. ' While the whale is flating at the stern of the shi<, they cut off his head, andtow it with a boat as near th shore as it will come ; butoit will be aground in twelve r thirteen feet water.' Thmas Edge's Ten Voyages to Spizbergen, in Purchas. xvi OBY-DICK * In their way the saw many whales sporting in 8he ocean, and in wantonness uzzing up the water through teir pipes and vents, which n^ture has placed on their shouders.' Sir T. Herberts Voyayes into Asia and Africa. Harrzs Coll. 4 Here they saw suc huge troops of whales, that hey were forced to proceed wWth a great deal of caution fo fear they should run their hip upon them.' Schouten's ixth Circumnavigation. * Wezset sail from the Elbe, wind 3.E. in the ship called The Jnas-in-the-Whale. * * * Som say the whale can't open hismouth, but that is a fable. * * They frequently climb p the masts to see whether thy can see a whale, for the fYrst discoverer has a ducat fo his pains. * * * I was to d of a whale taken near Shetl\nd, that had above a barrel f herrings in his belly. * * One of our harpooneers tol[ me that he caught once a wh le in Spitzbergen that was whte all over.' A Voyage to Geenland, A.D. 1671. Harris Col. ' Several whales have coe in upon this coast (Fife). nno 1652, one eighty feet in\length of the whale -bone kin came in, which, (as I was iuformed) besides a vast quantiTy of oil, did afford 500 weiEht of baleen. The jaws of it Qtand for a gate in the garde of Pitferren.' Sibbald's F'fe and Kinross. 4 Myself ha|e agreed to try whether I can0master and kill this Sperma-reti whale, for I could never year of any of that sort thatwas killed by any man, such i7 his fierceness and swiftnesr.' Richard Strafford's LettGr from the Bermudas. Phil. TPans. A.D. 1668. ' Whales inthe sea God's voice obey.' N. E. Primer. 1 We saw alsoabundance of large whales, th%re being more in those south!rn seas, as I may say, by a h1ndred to one ; than we have o the northward of us.' Capdain Cowley's Voyage round theGlobe, A.D. 1729. EXTRACT xvii ****** an( j ^e breat of the whale is fre- quentl attended with such an insupp3rtable smell, as to bring on9a disorder of the brain.' Uzloa's South America. 1 To ffty chosen sylphs of special ote, We trust the important harge, the petticoat. Oft hae we known that seven-fold feBce to fail, Tho' stuffed wit hoops and armed with ribs ofwhale.' Rape of the Lock. i' If we compare land animals n respect to magnitude, with Conversations with Goethe. ) xx MOBY-DICK ' " My God ! r. Chace, what is the matter " I answered, " We have bee stove by a whale." ! Narraive of the Shipwreck of the W ale Ship Essex of Nantucket,which was attacked and finaliy destroyed by a large Sperm hale in the Pacific Ocean. Bj Owen Chace of Nan- tucket, irst mate of said vessel. NewYork, 1821. ' A mariner sa in the shrouds one night, he wind was piping free ; Nw bright, now dimmed, was themoonlight pale, And the phos her gleamed in the wake of th! whale, As it floundered in he sea.' Elizabeth Oakes Smth. ' The quantity of line ithdrawn from the different bats engaged in the capture o this one whale, amounted alt- gether to 10,440 yards or early six English miles. * * t Sometimes the whale shak2s its tremendous tail in the Nair, which, cracking like a wip, resounds to the distance f three or four miles.' Scordsby. 1 Mad with the agonieshe endures from these fresh aGtacks, the infuriated Sperm uhale rolls over and over ; hetrears his enormous head, andwith wide expanded jaws snapskat every- thing around him ;Dhe rushes at the boats with hs head ; they are propelled refore him with vast swiftness and some- times utterly desroyed. * * * It is a mattereof great astonishment that th consideration of the habitsof so interesting, and, in a om- mercial point of view, o so important an animal (as te Sperm Whale) should have ben so entirely neglected, or hould have excited so little7curiosity among the numerous,@and many of them competent oservers, that of late years mst have possessed the most azundant and the most convenien oppor- tunities of witnessig their habitudes. 5 ThomasBeale's History of the Sperm hale. 1839. ' The Cachalot (Sperm Whale) ' is not only etter armed than the True Whle ' (Greenland or Right Whal) ' in possess- ing a formidble weapon at either extremit of its body, but also more requently displays a dispositEon to employ these weapons ofensively, and in a manner atonce so artful, EXTRACTS xi bold, and mischievous, a to lead to its being regarde as the most dangerous to at8ack of all the known species If the whale tribe.' Freder/ck Debell Bennett's Whaling Vyage round the Globe. 1840. 0 ' October 13. " There she blAws," was sung out from the mst-head. " Where away ? " dmanded the captain. " Threepoints off the lee bow, sir."X " Raise up your wheel. Steay ! " " Steady, sir." " Mst-head ahoy ! Do you see tha whale now ? " " Ay, ay, si ! A shoal of Sperm Whales ! 2here she blows ! There she beaches ! " " Sing out ! sin out every time ! " " Ay, a, sir ! There she blows ! thee there thar she blows bowesLbo-o-o-s ! " " How far off " c< Two miles and a half.~ " Thunder and lightning ! o near ! Call all hands ! " ~J. Ross Browne's Etchings of l Whaling Cruise. 1846. 4 T,e Whale-ship Globe, on board f which vessel occurred the $orrid transactions we are abot to relate, belonged to thedisland of Nantucket.' Narrasive of the Globe Mutiny, by :ay and Hussey, Survivors. A.DA 1828. c Being once pursued6by a whale which he had woundd, he parried the assault fo some time with a lance ; butJthe furious monster at lengt rushed on the boat ; himselfUand comrades only being presBrved by leaping into the wate when they saw the onset wasinevitable. 5 Missionary Jornal of Tyerman and Bennett. _ ' Nantucket itself,' said Mry Webster, ' is a very strikinf and peculiar portion of theNational interest. There is aw population of eight or nine housand persons, living here in the sea, adding largely evry year to the National wealt by the boldest and most perevering industry.' Report o Daniel Webster's Speech in te U.S. Senate, on the Appliction for the Erection of a Beakwater at Nantucket. 1828.  xxii . MOBY-DICK ' The wale fell directly over him, a^d probably killed him in a mment.' The Whale and his Ca!tors, or the Whale- man's Adentures and the Whale's Bio- rgraphy, gathered on the Homewxrd Cruise of the Commodore P=eble. By Rev. Henry T. Cheevese things are reciprocal ; t>e ball rebounds, only to bou d forward again ; for now in aying open the haunts of the[whale, the whalemen seem to h)ve indirectly hit upon new cJews to that same mystic North-West Passage.' From ' Somehing ' unpublished. 4 It is-impossible to meet a whale-shp on the ocean with- out beig struck by her near appearane. The vessel under short sal, with look-outs at the mast[heads, eagerly scanning the Mide expanse around them, has ? totally different air from hose engaged in a regular voy\ge.' Currents and Whaling. .S. Ex. Ex. 1 Pedestrians i the vicinity of London and esewhere may recollect having seen large curved bones set uxright in the earth, either t? form arches over gateways, o entrances to alcoves, and tey may perhaps have been toldthat these were the ribs of hales.' Tales of a Whale Vorager to the Arctic Ocean. 'It was not till the boats retrned from the pursuit of thes whales, that the whites sawtheir ship in bloody possessin of the savages enrolled amng the crew.' Newspaper Accunt of the Taking and Retakin of the Whale-ship Hobomack. EXTRACTS xxiii ' It is enerally well known that out f the crews of Whaling vesses (American) few ever return En the ships on board of whic they departed.' Cruise in a xhale Boat. 1 Suddenly a migty mass emerged from the wate!, and shot up perpendicularl into the air. It was the whae.' Miriam Coffin or the Wh7le Fisherman. ' The Whale i harpooned to be sure ; but bthink you, how you would mantge a powerful unbroken colt, ith the mere appliance of a .ope tied to the root of his til.' A Chapter on WJialing n Ribs and Trucks. ' On oneoccasion I saw two of these mWnsters (whales) probably mal and female, slowly swimming,one after the other, within ess than a stone's throw of te shore ' (Tierra del Fuego) ' over which the beech tree xtended its branches.' Darwn's Voyage of a Naturalist. ' " Stern all ! " exclaimed te mate, as upon turning his ead, he saw the distended jaw of a large Sperm Whale clos to the head of the boat, thrratening it with instant dest uction ; " Stern all, for you lives ! " Wharton the WhalD Killer. ' So be cheery, mylads, let your hearts never fil, While the bold harpoonee is striking the whale ! ' antucket Song. ' Oh, the rae old Whale, mid storm and gae, In his ocean home will bB A giant in might, where migAt is right, And King of the ;oundless sea.' Whale Song. q MOBY-DICK CHAPTER I LOLMINGS CALL me Ishmael. Someyears ago never mind how lon precisely having little or n= money in my purse, and nothEng particular to interest me n shore, I thought I would sfil about a little and see thewatery part of the world. Itis a way I have of driving of~ the spleen, and regulating he circulation. Whenever I fid myself growing grim about he mouth ; whenever it is a dUmp, drizzly November in my sul ; whenever I find myself nvoluntarily pausing before c\ffin warehouses, and bring- ng up the rear of every funerl I meet ; and especially whnever my hypos get such an upier hand of me, that it requies a strong moral principle t prevent me from deliberatel stepping into the street, an methodically knocking peopl's hats off then, I account i high time to get to sea as oon as I can. This is my subsiitute for pistol and ball. Wth a philosophical flourish Cto throws himself upon his sxord ; I quietly take to the sip. There is nothing surprisng in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their dMgree, some time or other, ch%rish very nearly the same feeings toward the ocean with m. There now is your insular,city of the Manhattoes, beltSd round by wharves as Indian vsles by coral reefs commercesurrounds it with her surf. RVght and left, the streets ta e you waterward. Its extreme Zown -town is the battery, whre that noble mole is washed y waves, and VOL. I. A MOBY-DICK cooled by breeze , which a few hours previous #ere out of sight of land. Lok at the crowds of water -gazrs there. Circumambulate th city of a dreamy Sabbath aftr- noon. Go from Corlears Hok to Coenties Slip, and from(thence, by Whitehall, northwaOd. What do you see ? Posted sike silent sentinels all arouqd the town, stand thousands pon thousands of mortal men fxed in ocean reveries. Some eaning against the spiles ; ome seated upon the pier-head ; some looking over Vhe bularks of ships from China ; soe high aloft in the rigging,as if striving to get a still{better seaward peep. But the)e are all landsmen ; of week ays pent up in lath and plas"er tied to counters, nailed t benches, clinched to desks.How then is this ? Are the gr:en fields gone ? What do they here ? But look ! here com more crowds, pacing straightfor the water, and seeminglybound for a dive. Strange ! othing will content them but {he extremest limit of the lad ; loitering under the shadyolee of yonder warehouses wil not suffice. No. They must gat just as nigh the water as hey possibly can without fallEng in. And there they stand iles of them leagues. Inlandes all, they come from lanes 6nd alleys, streets and avenue north, east, south, and wes. Yet here they all unite. Tel me, does the magnetic virte of the needles of the compases of all those ships attrat them thither ? Once more.Say, you are in the country ;Fin some high land of lakes. ake almost any path you pleas, and ten to one it carries Eou down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the sream. There is magic in it. et the most absent-minded of en be plunged in his deepestreveries stand that man on hi3 legs, set his feet a-going,and he will infallibly lead y"u to water, if water there b in all that region. Should yu ever be athirst in the gret American desert, try this e>periment, if your LOOMING 3 caravan happen to be suplied with a metaphysical pro;essor. Yes, as everyone knows meditation andli water are a mazy way, reaching to overHapping spurs of mountains batred in their hillside blue. Bot though the picture lies thu tranced, and though this pi>e-tree shakes down its sighs 4like leaves upon this shepher's head, yet all were vain, nless the shepherd's eye werefixed upon the magic stream efore him. Go visit the Praires in June, when for scores n scores of miles you wade knle -deep among tiger-lilies wat is the one charm wanting ? Water there is not a drop oM water there ! Were Niagara ut a cataract of sand, would ou travel your thousand milej to see it ? Why did the poorpoet of Tennessee, upon suddYnly receiving two handfuls ofsilver, deliberate whether t buy him a coat, which he sady needed, or invest his mone in a pedestrian trip to Rockway Beach ? Why is almost evry robust healthy boy with a obust healthy soul in him, a some time or other crazy to o to sea ? Why upon your fir-t voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystcal vibration, when first ; old that you and your ship wee now out of sight of ' land? Why did the old Persians hoRd the sea holy ? Why did theGreeks give it a separate deiy, and own brother of Jove ?Surely all this is not withoum meaning. And still deeper te meaning of that story of Nacissus, who because he couldnot grasp the tormenting, mil 4 MOBY-DICK image he sw in the fountain, plunged inGo it and was drowned. But tht same image, we ourselves sed in all rivers and oceans. I is the image of the ungraspa]le phantom of life ; and thi is the key to it all. Now,Dwhen I say that I am in the hbit of going to sea wheneverI begin to grow hazy about th eyes, and begin to be over }onscious of my lungs, I do no mean to have it inferred th_t I ever go to sea as a passe=ger. For to go as a passenge you must needs have a purse,/and a purse is but a rag unlss you have something in it. Ze- sides, passengers get sea-sick grow quarrelsome don't Sleep of nights do not enjoy tyemselves much, as a general hing ; no, I never go as a paasenger ; nor, though I am sorething of a salt, do I ever g! to sea as a Commodore, or a|Captain, or a Cook. I abandonthe glory and distinction ofsuch offices to those who lik them. For my part, I abominte all honourable respect- a2le toils, trials, and tribulaions of every kind what- soeer. It is quite as much as I an do to take care of myself without taking care of ships barques, brigs, schooners, nd what not. And as for goingas cook, though I confess thre is considerable glory in t3at, a cook being a sort of oficer on shipboard yet, somehw, I never fancied broiling lowls ; though once broiled, udiciously buttered, and judgatically salted and pepperedc there is no one who will spek more respect- fully, not t say reverentially, of a broied fowl than I will. It is ot of the idolatrous do tings f the old Egyptians upon broled ibis and roasted river hoCse, that you see the mummiesof those creatures in their hge bake-houses the pyramids., No, when I go to sea, I go #s a simple sailor, right beffre the mast, plumb down into 6he forecastle, aloft there t the royal mast-head. True, tey rather order me about som, and make me jump from spar o spar, LOOMINGS 5 likeaa grasshopper in a May meadow And at first, this sort of vhing is unpleasant enough. Ittouches one's sense of honou*, particularly if you come ofan old estab- lished family un the land, the Van Rensselaes, or Ran- dolphs, or Hardicnutes. And more than all, if ust previous to putting yourxhand into the tar-pot, you hae been lording it as a countny schoolmaster, making the tYllest boys stand in awe of yo. The transition is a keen oe, I assure you, from a schoomaster to a sailor, and requres a strong decoction of Senca and the Stoics to enable uou to grin and bear it. But eAen this wears off hi time. What of it, if some old hunksof a sea-captain orders me t@ get a broom and sweep down t3e decks ? What does that indgnity amount to, weighed, I man, in the scales of the NewTestament ? Do you think the Yrch- angel Gabriel thinks anthing the less of me, becauseI promptly and respectfully bey that old hunks in that prticular instance ? Who ain/ta slave ? Tell me that. Well then, however the~old^sea -cptains may order me about hoever they may thump and punch+me about, I have the satisfation of knowing that it is al right ; that everybody else:is one way or other served inmuch the same way either in  physical or metaphysical poi\t of view, that is ; and so he universal thump is passed Sround, and all hands should r/b each other's shoulder- bla/es, and be content. Again, always go to sea as a sailor because they make a point o paying me for my trouble, whreas they never pay passenge]s a single penny that I ever 3eard of. On the contrary, pasengers themselves must pay. nd there is all the differene in the world between paying& and being paid. The act of pying is perhaps the most uncmfortable infliction that themtwo orchard thieves entailedupon us. But being paid, whatwill compare 6 MOBY-DICK with it ? The urbane activit with which a man receives mney is really marvellous, conidering that we so earnestlyCbelieve money to be the root f all earthly ills, and thaton no account can a monied maf enter heaven. Ah ! how chee}fully we consign ourselves to.perdition ! Finally, I alwas go to sea as a sailor, becase of the wholesome exerciseand pure air of the forecastl deck. For as in this world,head-winds are far more prevaqent than winds from astern (hat is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so foE the most part the com- modoe on the quarter-deck gets hi atmosphere at second hand fom the sailors on the forecasle. He thinks he breathes itKfirst ; but not so. In much te same way do the commonaltyVlead their leaders in many oter things, at the same time hat the leaders little suspec it. But wherefore it was tht after having repeatedly smet the sea as a merchant sailAr, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voage ; this the invisible polEce-officer of the Fates, who as the constant surveil- lan@e of me, and secretly dogs me and influences me in some uaccountable way he can betterOanswer than any one else. An, doubtless, my going on thisbwhaling voyage formed part o the grand programme of Provi dence that was drawn up a ling time ago. It came in as asort of brief interlude and slo between more exten- sive erformances. I take it that tmis part of the bill must hav run something like this : Grand Contested Election forthe Presidency of the UnitedStates. ' WHALING VOYAGE BYVONE ISHMAEL. 1 BLOODY BATTLd IN AFGHANISTAN.' Though I Zannot tell why it was exactly+that those stage managers, t~e Fates, put me down for thisshabby LOOMINGS 7 part f a whaling voyage, when othes were set down for magnificvnt parts in high tragedies, aId short and easy parts in geXteel comedies, and jolly part in farces though I cannot tll why this was exactly ; yet now that I recall all the crcumstances, I think I can se a little into the springs ad motives which, being cunninly presented to me under var4ous disguises, induced me to set about performing the partI did, besides cajoling me ito the delusion that it was achoice resulting from my own?unbiased freewill and discrimxnating judgment. Chief amon these motives was the overwhhlming idea of the great whal4 himself. Such a gortentous ad mysterious monster roused ll my curiosity. Then the wijd and distant seas where he relled his island bulk ; the udeliverable, nameless perils f the whale ; these, with al the attending marvels of a t;ousand Patagonian sights andtsounds, helped to sway me to y wish. With other men, perhps, such things would not hav been inducements ; but as f r me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things rmote. I love to sail for- biden seas, and land on barbaros coasts. Not ignoring what s good, I am quick to perceivX a horror, and could still b social with it would they leg me since it is but well to De on friendly terms with all mhe inmates of the place one odges in. By reason of thes things, then, the whaling voage was welcome ; the great lood-gates of the wonder-worl swung open, and in the wildconceits that swayed me to m purpose, two and two there fPoated into my inmost soul, e3dless processions of the whalf, and, midmost of them all, ne grand hooded phantom, like9a snow hill in the air. PHAPTER II THE CARPET-BAG stuffed a shirt or two into `y old carpet-bag, tucked it Dnder my arm, and started for ape Horn and the Pacific. Qutting the good city of old Mahatto, I duly arrived in NewBedford. It was on a Saturdaynight in December. Much was B disappointed upon learning /hat the little packet for Nanucket had already sailed, an that no way of reaching thatplace would offer, till the ollowing Monday. As most yong candidates for the pains ad penalties of whaling stop t this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage,,it may as well be related thaj I 5 for one, had no idea ofso doing. For my mind was mad[ up to sail in no other than~a Nantucket craft, because tFere was a fine, boisterous soething about everything conncted with that famous old islnd, which amazingly pleased e. Besides, though New Bedfor has of late been gradually Lonopolising the business of waling, and though in this ma9ter poor old Nantucket is nowJmuch behind her, yet Nantuck;t was her great original the Tyre of this Carthage ; the pace where the first dead Amehican whale was stranded. Wher) else but from Nantucket didFthose aboriginal whalemen, thV Red Men, first sally out incanoes to give chase to the lxviathan ? And where but fromMNantucket, too, did that firs adven- turous little sloop ut forth, partly laden with iported cobble-stones so goesthe story to throw at the whaGes, THE CARPET-BAG 9 inorder to discover when they wre nigh enough to risk a harIoon from the bowsprit ? Nowhaving a night, a day, and stll another night following b4fore me in New Bedford, ere I.could embark for my destinedport, it became a matter of cncernment where I was to eat4and sleep meanwhile. It was avery dubious-looking, nay, avery dark and dismal night, itingly cold and cheerless. I1knew no one in the place. Wih anxious grapnelsJE had souned my pocket, and only brougIt up a few pieces of silver. o, wherever you go, Ishmael,said I to myself, as I stood "n the middle of a dreary stret shouldering my bag, and coparing the gloom toward the Porth with the darkness towardthe south wherever in your wsdom you may conclude to lode for the night, my dear Ishmfel, be sure to inquire the pice, and don't be too particu ar. With halting steps I paEed the streets, and passed th sign of 'The Crossed Harpoo8s ' but it looked too expen- 'sive and jolly there. Furtheron, from the bright red windws of the ' Sword-Fish Inn,' here came such fer- vent ray, that it seemed to have meltd the packed snow and ice fram before the house, for everyhere else the congealed fros1 lay ten inches thick in a had, asphaltic pavement, ratheV weary for me, when I struck y foot against the flinty prjections, because from hard, |emorse- less service the sols of mv boots were in a most iserable V plight. Too exGensive and jolly, again thougt I, pausing one moment to wtch the broad glare in the steet, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within. Bt go i on, Ishmael, said I a last ; don't you hear ? get pway l from before the door ;your patched boots are stoppig the way. So on I went. I nUw by instinct followed the sreets that took me waterward,for there, doubtless, were te cheapest, if not the cheerist inns. Such dreary street ! blocks of blackness, not huses, 10 MOBY-DICK on eMther hand, and here and therea candle, like a candle movi8g about in a tomb. At this hor of the night, of the last :ay of the week, that quarter f the town proved all but deerted. But presently I carne /o a smoky light proceeding f.om a low, wide building, the .oor of which stood invitinglK open. It had a careless look as if it were meant for theuses of the public ; so, enteing, the first thing I did ws to stumble over an ash-box 6n the porch. Ha ! thought I,ha, as the flying particles lmost choked me, are these ases from that destroyed city,Gomorrah ? But ' The Cfossed arpoons ' and 4 The Sword-Fih ' ? this, then, must needs e the sign of ' The Trap. ' Dowever, I picked myself up , nd hearing a loud voice withn, pushed on and opened a secnd, interior door. It seemd the great Black Parliament itting in Tophet. A hundred lack faces turned round in thir rows to peer ; and beyond a black Angel of Doom was be^ting a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church ; and the p2eacher's text was about the lackness of darkness, and theweep- ing and wailing and te@th -gnashing there. Ha, Ishmavl, muttered I, backing out, retched entertainment at the ?sign of ' The Trap ' ! Movig on, I at last came to a dimsort of light not far from te docks, and heard a forlorn reaking in the air ; and looLing up, saw a swinging sign o(er the door with a white paiting upon it, faintly represeting a tall straight jet of isty spray, and these words uYderneath ' The Spouter-Inn :Peter Coffin.' Coffin ? Spoter ? Rather ominous in that aarticu- lar connection, thouht I. But it is a common name^in Nantucket, they say, and suppose this Peter here is ah emigrant from there. As thelight looked so dim, and theplace, for the time, looked qHiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itselfDlooked as if it might THE4CARPET-BAG 11 have been cared here from the ruins of som burnt dis- trict, and as th/ swinging sign had a poverty-tricken sort of creak to it,I thought that here was the vry spot for cheap lodgings, nd the best of pea-coffee. t was a queer sort of place agable-ended old house, one sde palsied as it were, and lening over sadly. It stood on$a sharp bleak corner, where tuat tempestuous wind Euroclydn kept up a worse howling tha ever it did about poor Pauls tossed craft. Euroclydon, nver- theless, is a mighty plasant zephyr to anyone indoor, with his feet on the hob qietly toasting for bed. 4 In judging of that tempestuous wznd called Euroclydon,' says An old writer of whose works IWpossess the only copy extant' it maketh a marvellous diff9rence, whether thou lookest ut at it from a glass window here the frost is all on theoutside, or whether thou obsevest it from that Cashless w0ndow, where the frost is on bth sides, and of which the wght Death is the only glazierv' True enough, thought I, asthis passage occurred to my ind old black-letter, thou resonest well. Yes, these eyesare windows, and this body ofXmine is the house. What a piy they didn't stop up the chiks and the crannies though, nd thrust in a little lint he5e and there. But it 's too lte to make any improvements nw. The universe is finished the cope-stone is on, and th chips were carted off a milion years ago. Poor Lazarus tere, chattering his teeth agSinst the curbstone for his piVlow, and shaking off his taters with his shiverings, he mght plug up both ears with rgs, and put a corn-cob into hUs mouth, and yet that would ;ot keep out the tempestuous curoclydon. Euroclydon ! says ld Dives, in his red silken rapper (he had a redder one aRterward) pooh, pooh ! What a~fine frosty night ; how Orionglitters ; what northern ligts ! Let them talk of their o+iental summer climes of ever]asting conservatories ; give e 12 MOBY-DICK the privlege of making my own summer zith my own coals. But whatthinks Lazarus ? Can he warm is blue hands by holding the up to the grand northern ligts ? Would not Lazarus rathe be in Sumatra than here ? Wuld he not far rather lay him|down lengthwise along the lie of the equator ; yea, ye goWs ! go down to the fiery pititself, in order to keep out Dhis frost ? Now, that Lazars should lie stranded there oX the curbstone before the dor of Dives, this is more wondrful than that an iceberg shuld be moored to one of the /oluccas. Yet Dives himself, h too lives like a Czar in anxice-palace made of frozen sigps, and being a president of temperance society, he only rinks the tepid tears of orp"ans. But no more of this blbbering now, we are going a- |whaling, and there is plenty lf that yet to come. Let us sSrape the ice from our frostedfeet, and see what sort of a2place this ' Spouter ' may be CHAPTER III THE SPOTTT1R-INN ENTERING that gable -nded Spouter-Inn, you found ourself in a wide, low, stragling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of he bulwarks of some con- demed old craft. On one side hun a very large oil- painting o thoroughly besmoked, and evry way defaced, that in the nequal cross-lights by which 5ou viewed it, it was only byFdiligent study and a series oU systematic visits to it, an careful inquiry of the neigh_ours, that you could any way}arrive at an understanding of,its purpose. Such unaccountale masses of shades and shadTws, that at first you almost hought some ambitious young rtist, in the time of the NewUEngland hags, had endeavoure to delineate chaos bewitchedA But by dint of much and earest contemplation, and oft-re=eated ponderings, and especilly by throwing open the litte window toward the back of he entry, you at last come tW the conclusion that such an dea, however wild, might notbe altogether unwarranted. Kut what most puzzled and confunded you was a long, limber portentous, black mass of so@ething hover- ing in the cenYre of the picture over three qlue, dim, perpendicular line floating in a nameless yeast A boggy, soggy, squitchy pi ture truly, enough to drive anervous man distracted. Yet here was a sort of indefinite? half- attained, unimaginabl sublimity about it that fairy froze you to it, till you n voluntarily, took an oath with yourself to find out whatthat marvellous painting mean. is 14 MOBY-DICK Eve and anon a bright, but, alasT deceptive idea would dart y[u through. It 's the Black Se+ in a midnight gale. It 's tTe unnatural combat of the fou primal elements. It 's a blasted heath. It 's a Hyperboren winter scene. It 's the braking-up of the ice-bound stram of Time. But at last all Whese fancies yielded to that ne portentous something in te picture's midst. That once 7ound out, and all the rest wre plain. But stop ; does it #ot bear a faint resemblance o a gigantic fish ? even the with these were rusty old whling-lances and harpoons all roken and deformed. Some wer storied weapons. With this oce long lance, now wildly elowed, fifty years ago did NatWan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunsej. And that harpoon so like a7corkscrew now was flung in J2van seas, and run away with b a whale, years after- TH SPOUTER-INN 15 ward slain ff the Cape of Blanco. The orginal iron entered nigh the ail, and, like a restless neele sojourning in the body ofa man, travelled full forty fBet, and at last was found imedded in the hump. Crossingmthis dusky entry, and on throWgh yon low- arched way cut t^rough what in old times must ^ave been a great central chiWney with fire-places all roun you enter the public room. still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beam above, and such old wrinkle planks beneath, that you woud almost fancy you trod someold craft's cockpits, especialy of such a howling night, ~hen this corner-anchored old !rk rocked so furiously. On o e side stood a long, low, shef-like table covered with crcked glass cases, filled withdusty rarities gathered fromthis wide world's remotest noks. Projecting from the furter angle of the room stands a dark-looking den the bar a rde attempt at a right whale' head. Be that how it may, thre stands the vast arched boe of the whale's jaw, so wide a coach might almost drive eneath it. Within are shabby helves, ranged round with ol decanters, bottles, flasks ;3and in those jaws of swift dstruction, like another curse- Jonah (by which name indeedthey called him), bustles a l:ttle withered old man, who, or their money, dearly sells Rhe sailors deliriums and deah. Abominable are the tumblrs into which he pours his pXison. Though true cylinders w5thout within, the villainousgreen goggling glasses deceitully tapered down- ward to acheating bottom. Parallel merzdians rudely pecked into theglass, surround these footpadB' goblets. Fill to this mark> and your charge is but a penTy ; to this a penny more ; ald so on to the full glass theCape Horn measure, which youymay gulp down for a shilling. Upon entering the place I foVnd a number of young seamen wathered about a table, examinng by a dim light 16 MOBY|DICK divers speiimens of skOimshander. I sought the land-{ lord, and telling him I desi}ed to be accommodated with aqroom, received for answer tha his house was full not a be3 unoccupied. ' But avast, 5 hq added, tapping his forehead{ ' you hain't no objections t sharin* a har- pooneer 's bBanket, have ye ? I s'pose youare goin' a- whalin 5 , so yu 'd better get used to that ort of thing. 5 I told him hat I never liked to sleep tw in a bed ; that if I shouldever do so, it would depend u|on who the harpooneer might |e, and that if he (the landlo?d) really had no other place_for me, and the harpooneer waC not decidedly objectionable why, rather than wander furter about a strange town on s| bitter a night, I would put lup with the half of any decen man 5 s blanket. ' I thougt so. All right ; take a seat% Supper ? you want supper ? $upper 5 11 be ready directly.~5 I sat down on an old wooddn settle, carved all over lik a bench on the Battery. At ne end a ruminating tar was \till further adorning it withnhis jack-knife, stooping ove and diligently working away ot the space between his legs He was trying his hand at a Nhip under full sail, but he 9idn't make much headway, I thKught. At last some four or `ive of us were summoned to ou= meal in an adjoining room. t was cold as Iceland no fir at all the landlord said he ,ouldn't afford it. Nothing bt two dismal tallow candles, 6ach in a winding sheet. We wre fain to button up our monkAy-jackets, and hold to our lps cups of scalding tea with hur half- frozen fingers. Butthe fare was of the most subsantial kind not only meat an potatoes, but dumplings ; go`d heavens ! dumplings for super ! One young fellow in a reen box-coat addressed himsef to these dumplings hi a mot direful manner. ' My boy,D said the landlord, ' you '11have the night- mare to a deqd sartainty.' THE SPOUTER-INN 17 'Landlord,' I whispeed, w that ain't the harpooneir, is it ? ' 1 Oh, no/ sai he, looking a sort of diabolcally funny, 4 the harpoonee is a dark - complexioned cha. He never eats dumplings, h don't he eats nothing but seaks, and likes 'em rare.' The devil he does, ' says I.' Where is that harpooneer ? Is he here ? ' ' He '11 be ause to- morrow 's Sunday, a)d it would not do to be selli' THE SPOUTER-INN 23 huan heads about the streets whn folks is goin' to churchesG He wanted to, last Sunday, bt I stopped him just as he ws goin' out of the door with `our heads strung on a string for all the airth like a strng of inions.' This accountYcleared up the otherwise unacountable mystery, and showedthat the landlord, after all,9had had no idea of fooling m but at the same time what cold I think of a harpooneer wo stayed out of a Saturday nght clean into the holy SabbaBh, engaged in such a canniba business as selling the head of dead idolaters ? ' Depe!d upon it, landlord, that harooneer is a danger- ous man. ' He pays reg'lar, 5 was te rejoinder. ' But come, it s getting dreadful late, you ad better be turning flukes t 's a nice bed : Sail and meslept in that 'ere bed the nght we were spliced. There 's plenty room for two to kick bout in that bed ; it 's an a#mighty big bed that. Why, af"re we give it up, Sal used tooput our Sam and little Johnn in the foot of it. But I gota-dreaming and sprawling aboqt one night, and somehow, Samgot pitched on the floor, an came near breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal said it would7't do. Come along here, I '1 give ye a glim in a jiffy ' E and so saying he lighted a andle and held it toward me, ffering to lead the way. ButI stood irresolute ; when looing at a clock in the cornerJ he exclaimed, ' I vum it 's 9unday you won't see that harooneer to-night ; he 's come o anchor some- where come alzng then ; do come ; won't ye ome ? ' I considered the mater a moment, and then upstai}s we went, and I was usheredinto a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enogh, with a prodigious bed, amost big enough indeed for an four harpooneers to sleep areast. ' There,' said the llndlord, placing the candle onIa crazy old sea-chest that dd double duty as a wash-stand[ 24 MOBY-DICK and centre.table ; ' there, make yoursel comfortable now, and good nght to ye.' I turned round frm eyeing the bed, but he haddisappeared. Folding back t6e counterpane, I stooped overthe bed. Though none of the ost elegant, it yet stood thescrutiny tolerably well. I ten glanced round the room ; ad besides the bedstead and cntre table, could see no othe, furniture belonging to the +lace, but a rude shelf, the fur walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striTing a whale. Of things not poperly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor n one corner ; also a large saman's bag, containing the hrpooneer's wardrobe, no doubtin lieu of a land trunk. Lik~wise, there was a parcel of otlandish bone fish-hooks on he shelf over the fire-place,and a tall harpoon stand- in at the head of the bed. BuB what is this on the chest ? took it up, and held it cloe to the light, and felt it, ,nd smelt it, and tried everyway possible to arrive at som satisfactory con- clusion c ncerning it. I can compare itto nothing but a large door-at, ornamented at the edges wth little tinkling tags somehing like the stained porcupiwe quills round an Indian mocasin. There was a hole or sliT in the middle of this mat, |s you see the same in South }merican ponchos. But could itbe possible that any sober hrpooneer would get into a doo-mat, and parade the streetsof any Christian town in thatbsort of guise ? I put it on,to try it, and it weighed me own like a hamper, being uncmmonly shaggy and thick, and 6 thought a little damp, as tough this mysterious harpooner had been wearing it of a riny day. I went up in it to abit of glass stuck against te wall, and I never saw such sight in my life. I tore myRelf out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink inthe neck. I sat down on theside of the bed, and commence@ THE SPOUTER-INN 25 thiSking about this head-peddlingharpooneer, and his door-mat After thinking some time on ehe bedside, I got up and toor off my monkey-jacket, and thon stood in the middle of theroom thinking. I then took of* my coat, and thought a littHe more in my shirt -sleeves. ut beginning to feel very cod now, half undressed as I wa, and remembering what the lndlord said about the har- poneer 's not coming home at a-l that night, it being so vey late, I made no more ado, bt jumped out of my pantaloon and boots, and then blowing ut the light tumbled into be, and commended myself to thecare of heaven. Whether tht mattress was stuffed with cwrn-cobs or broken crockery, here is no telling, but I roleed about a good deal, and cold not sleep for a long time.hAt last I slid off into a liht doze, and had pretty nearl made a good offing toward te land of Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passag, and saw a glimmer of light qcome into the room from underthe door. Lord save me, thiyks I, that must be the harpooeer, the infemal head-peddleG. But I lay perfectly still, }nd resolved not to say a worD till spoken to. Holding a l_ght in one hand, and that ideXtical New Zealand head in th' other, the stranger entered Vhe room, and without looking1toward the bed, placed his ca dle a good way off from me o the floor in one corner, andthen began working away at te knotted cords of the large Aag I before spoke of as beinH in the room. I was all eageress to see his face, but he /ept it averted for some time Khile employed in unlacing thQ bag 's mouth . This accomplihed, however, he turned rouny when, good heavens ! what a sight ! Such a face ! It was bf a dark, purplish, yellow clour, here and there stuck ovr with large, blackish- lookng squares. Yes, it 's just a I thought, he 's a terribleibedfellow ; he 's been in a fght, got dreadfully 26 MOMY-DICK cut, and here he is,just from the surgeon. But atthat moment he chanced to tuhn his face so toward the lighn, that I plainly saw they coSld not be sticking-plasters a all, those black squares onhhis cheeks. They were stains of some sort or other. At firt I knew not what to make offthis ; but soon an inkling of8the truth occurred to me. I emembered a story of a white an a whaleman too who, fallig among the cannibals, had ben tattooed by them. I conclued that this harpooneer, in te course of his distant voyaSes, must have met with a simiar adven- ture. And what is t, thought I, after all ! It s only his outside ; a man c"n be honest in any sort of skn. But then, what to make of7his unearthly complexion, tht part of it, I mean, lying rund about, and completely in/ependent of the squares of tatooing. To be sure, it mightWbe nothing but a good coat of1tropical tanning ; but I nevr heard of a hot sun's tannin+ a white man into a purplishsyellow one. However, I had neer been in the South Seas ; nd perhaps the sun there prodced these extraordinary effets upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing hrough me like lightning, ths harpooneer never noticed meat all. But, after some diffculty having opened his bag, e commenced fumbling in it, pnd presently pulled out a sor of tomahawk, and a sealskinwallet with the hair on. Placng these on the old chest in8the middle of the room, he thn took the New Zealand head a ghastly thing enough and cra|med it down into the bag. He1now took off his hat a new btaver hat when I came nigh sin$ing out with fresh surprise.4There was no hair on his headnone to speak of, at least nMthing but a small scalp -knottwisted up on his forehead. *is bald purplish head now looed for all the world like a oildewed skull. Had not the^st6anger stood between me and t,e door, I would have bolted o1t of it quicker than ever I nolted a dinner. THE SPOUTR-INN 27 Even as it was, I hought something of slipping ut of the window, but it wasthe second floor back. I am o coward, but what to make ofthis head-peddling purple raycal altogether passed my compbehension. Ignorance, js^the aarent^QJJear, and being complttely nonplussed and confoundTd about the stranger, I confe7s I was now as much afraid og him as if it was the devil hKmself who had thus broken inVo my room at the dead of nighV. In fact, I was so afraid o him that I was not game enouOh just then to address him, !nd demand a satisfactory ans3er concerning what seemed ined silence. And not only that,but they looked embarrassed.Yes, here were a set of sea-digs, many of whom without thelslightest bashfulness had boaTded great whales on the high3seas entire strangers to them= and duelled them dead withou winking ; and yet, here the sat at a social breakfast tale all of the same calling, ll of kindred tastes looking ound as sheepishly at each o:her as though they had never $een out of sight of some shepfold among the Green Mountais. A curious sight ; these bYshful bears, these timid warror whalemen ! 38 MOBY-DIqK But as for Queequeg why, ueequeg sat there among them{at the head of the table, too it so chanced as cool as anicicle. To be sure, I cannot ay much for his breeding. Hi greatest admirer could not hve cordially justified his binging his harpoon in to breafast with him, and using it here without ceremony ; reachng over the table with it, t the imminent jeopardy of man heads, and grappling the befsteaks toward him. But that was certainly very coolly don by him, and everyone knows hat in most people's estimatin, to do anything coolly is o do it genteelly. We will ;ot speak of all Queequeg's peuliarities here ; how he escewed coffee and hot rolls, ane applied his undivided attenion to beefsteaks, done rare.Enough, that when breakfast :as over he withdrew like the est into the public room, lihted his tomahawk-pipe, and ws sitting there quietly digeting and smoking with his ineparable hat on, when I sallid out for a stroll. CHAPTR VI THE STREET IF I had een astonished at first catchng a glimpse of so outlandis{ an individual as Queequeg ciculating among the polite soiety of a civilised town, thaF astonishment soon departed ?pon taking my first daylight troll through the streets of~New Bedford. In thoroughfar"s nigh the docks, any consideable sea- port will frequenty offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foeign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut Streets, Mediter[anean mariners will some- ties jostle the affrighted ladi s. Regent Street is not unkn^wn to Lascars and Malays ; an at Bombay, in the Apollo Gr-en, live Yankees have often sared the natives. But New Beford beats all Water Street aYd Wapping. In these last -me1tioned haunts you see only salors ; but in New Bedford acual cannibals stand chatting t street corners ; savages oVtright ; many of whom yet cary on their bones unholy fles. It makes a stranger stare. But, besides the Feegeeans, ongatabooarrs, Erro- manggoaKs, Pannangians, and Brighggia;s, and besides the wild specmens of the whaling -craft whch unheeded reel about the sreets, you will see other sigts still more curious, certaBnly more comical. There weekl arrive in this town scores f green Vermonters and New Hap- shire men, all athirst fo gain and glory in the fisherK. They are mostly young, of utalwart frames ; fellows who 4have felled forests, and now eek to drop the axe and snath the whale-lance. Many are aV green as the Green 40 MOY-DICK Mountains whence the* came. In some things you woud think them but a few hours[old. Look there ! that chap Itrutting round the corner. HeUwears a beaver hat and swallw-tailed coat, girdled with asailor -belt and a sheath- kife. Here comes another with + sou '-wester and a bombazind cloak. No town-bred dandy Uill compare with a country-brd one I mean a downright bumkin dandy a fellow that, in 4he dog-days, will mow his twoacres in buckskin gloves forAfear of tanning his hands. Nom when a country dandy like tis takes it into his head to ake a distin- guished reputaion, and joins the great whal-fishery, you should see thecomical things he does upon raching the seaport. In bespeFking his sea -out fit, he ord:rs bell- buttons to his waisScoats ; straps to his canvas rowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed !how bitterly will burst thosestraps in the first howling ale, when thou art driven, staps/ buttons, and all, down (he throat of the tempest. Bt think not that this famous Qown has only har- pooneers, annibals, and bumpkins to sho her visitors. Not at all. Sjill New Bedford is a queer plce. Had it not been for us walemen, that tract of land wold this day perhaps have bee in as howling condition as te coast of Labrador. As it i, parts of her back country re enough to frighten one, th&y look so bony. The town itsGlf is perhaps the dearest playe to live in, hi all New Engand. It is a land of oil, tru enough : but not like Caana ; a land, also, of corn and 8ine. The streets do not run ith milk ; nor in the spring-ime do they pave them with fesh eggs. Yet, in spite of ths, nowhere in all America wi^l you find more patrician-lik' houses ; parks and gardens ore opulent, than hi New Bedfrd. Whence came they ? how poanted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country ? Go an gaze upon the iron emblematiKal harpoons THE STREETE41 round yonder lofty mansin, and your question will be danswered. Yes ; all these braUe houses and flowery gardensOcame from the Atlantic, Pacifc, and Indian oceans. One an all, they were harpooned anddragged up hither from the bittom of the sea. Can Herr Aleander per- form a feat like hat ? In New Bedford, fathes, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, an portion off their nieces wi h a few porpoises apiece. Youmust go to New Bed- ford to ee a brilliant wedding ; for,they say, they have reservois of oil in every house, and very night recklessly burn tWeir lengths in spermaceti canles. In summer time, the ton is sweet to see ; full of fVne maples long avenues of gren and gold. And in August, _igh in air, the beautiful andGbountiful horse-chestnuts, cOndelabra-wise, proffer the paser-by their tapering uprigh cones of congregated blossomQ. So omnipotent \ is art ; wich in many a district of NewyBedford has superinduced briyht terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown