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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...
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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 Edges Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchass_. In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in wantonn...
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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 Queens Visit to London_. Ten or fifteen ...
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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 ...
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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 somethin...
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CHAPTER II. 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 on a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for...
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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 underneathThe Spouter-Inn:Peter Coffin. Coffin?Spou...
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CHAPTER III. 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 oil-painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal...
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Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true cylinders withoutwithin, 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;...
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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 fa...
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The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldnt I steal a march on himbolt 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 r...
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This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling mebut at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolato...
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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 g...
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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 cur...
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He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one, by the by, and thenstill minus his trowsershe hunted up his boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his next movement was to crush himselfboots in hand, and hat onunder the bed; when, from sundry violent gaspings and strain...
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CHAPTER V. 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 goo...
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CHAPTER VI. 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, an...
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CHAPTER VIII. 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 famou...
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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 i...
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We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I propose...
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CHAPTER XI. NIGHTGOWN We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishne...
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CHAPTER XII. BIOGRAPHICAL Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are. When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Que...
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CHAPTER XIII. WHEELBARROW Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrades bill; using, however, my comrades money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between me and Que...
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Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!how I spurned that turnpike earth!that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magn...
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CHAPTER XIV. NANTUCKET Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look a...
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CHAPTER XV. CHOWDER It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asse...
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We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? Whats that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? But look, Queequeg, aint that a live eel in your bowl? Wheres your harpoon? Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, w...
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Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It wa...
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It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely fortuneand so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the w...
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CHAPTER XVII. THE RAMADAN As Queequegs Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybodys religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a cong...
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And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force open the door. I wont allow it; I wont have my premises spoiled. Go for the locksmith, theres one about a mile from here. But avast! putting her hand in her side-pocket, heres a key thatll fit, I guess; lets see. And with that, she turned it in the ...
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Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any persons religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person dont believe it also. But when a mans religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth ...
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CHAPTER XVIII. HIS MARK As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, unless...
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But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so that through Captain Pelegs obstinate mistake ...
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CHAPTER XIX. THE PROPHET Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship? Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the ves...
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Look here, friend, said I, if you have anything important to tell us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are mistaken in your game; thats all I have to say. And its said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way; you are just the man for himthe likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmate...
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CHAPTER XX. ALL ASTIR A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything betokened that the ships preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom ...
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CHAPTER XXI. GOING ABOARD It was nearly six oclock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we drew nigh the wharf. There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right, said I to Queequeg, it cant be shadows; shes off by sunrise, I guess; come on! Avast! cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming cl...
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CHAPTER XXII. MERRY CHRISTMAS At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ships riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whaleboat, with her last gifta night-cap for Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a spare bi...
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At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the mo...
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CHAPTER XXIII. THE LEE SHORE Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, new-landed mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. When on that shivering winters night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked w...
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Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies;...
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CHAPTER XXVI. KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood ...
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But were the coming narrative to reveal, in any instance, the complete abasement of poor Starbucks fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valor in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, a...
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CHAPTER XXVII. KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toili...
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CHAPTER XXVIII. AHAB For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin with ord...
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So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been ...
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CHAPTER XXXI. QUEEN MAB Next morning Stubb accosted Flask. Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old mans ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a bl...
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CHAPTER XXXII. CETOLOGY Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harborless immensities. Ere that come to pass; ere the Pequods weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost indispensab...
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But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the whale, in his anatomythere, at least, we shall be able to hit the right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in the Greenland whales anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly...
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BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER III. (_Narwhale_), that is, _Nostril whale_.Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five feet, though some exceed ten, and even at...
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BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER I (_Huzza Porpoise_).This is the common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something must be done to distinguish them. I call them thus, because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the ...
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CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SPECKSNYDER Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the whale-fleet. The large importan...
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In one of those southern whalemen, on a long three or four years voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the mast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion of the whole term of your natural life, sho...
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But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as Captain Sleet and his Greenland-men were; yet that disadvantage is greatly counterbalanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, restin...
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CHAPTER XXXVI. THE QUARTER-DECK (_enter Ahab: Then, all._) It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take...
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CHAPTER XXXVII. SUNSET _The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out._ I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, whereer I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblets rim, the warm waves blush l...
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CHAPTER XXXVIII. DUSK _By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it._ My soul is more than matched; shes overmanned; and by a madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must ...
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CHAPTER XLI. MOBY DICK I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahabs quenchless feud seemed mine. Wi...
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But there were still other and more vital practical influences at work. Not even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intellig...
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Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortali...
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Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but Gods great, unflattering laureate, Nature.[6] [6] I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged gale,...
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What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other menhas no substantive deformityand yet this mere aspect of all-per...
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Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas: nor the tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburb...
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Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright. But not yet have we solved the incant...
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CHAPTER XLIV. THE CHART Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his purpose with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread them bef...
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And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in crossing the widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his art, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be wholly without prospect of a meeting. There w...
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Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his life-spot became insufferable anguish...
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CHAPTER XLV. THE AFFIDAVIT So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earliest part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the leading...
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But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with that express object as much in view, as in sett...
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[8] The following are extracts from Chaces narrative: Every fact seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to their direction, were calculated to do us the mo...
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CHAPTER XLVI. SURMISES Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long habituation far ...
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CHAPTER XLVII. THE MAT-MAKER It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-colored waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet somehow pre...
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In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely across Stubbs bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye please! Halloa! returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inc...
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I cant see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on to that. Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty shoulders for a pedestal. Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount? That I will, and thank ye very mu...
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Look at that chap now, philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a short distance, followed afterHes got fits, that Flask has. Fits? yes, give him fitsthats the very wordpitch fits into em. Merrily, merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;...
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Thats his hump. _There, there_, give it to him! whispered Starbuck. A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail collapsed and exploded; a gush of scaldi...
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CHAPTER XLIX. THE HYENA There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobodys expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits...
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CHAPTER L. AHABS BOAT AND CREW. FEDALLAH Who would have thought it, Flask! cried Stubb; if I had but one leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! hes a wonderful old man! I dont think it so strange, after all, on that account, said Flask. If his leg were off at...
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CHAPTER LI. THE SPIRIT-SPOUT Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly swept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the Azores; off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, southerl...
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But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, the foam-flakes flew over her bulwar...
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CHAPTER LII. THE ALBATROSS South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean ...
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CHAPTER LIII. THE GAM The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded herjudging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasionsif so it had been that, by the p...
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But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a _Gam_, a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name even; and if by chance they should hear of it, ...
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CHAPTER LIV. THE TOWN-HOS STORY (_As told at the Golden Inn._) The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet more travellers than in any other part. It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound...
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Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ourswatery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bit...
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Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping the deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then, without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as the customary sweepers; who, not being billeted a...
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Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the su...
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Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say! Look ye, now, cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him, there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped for the cruise, dye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim our discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we dont want a row; its not...
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Meantime, at the first tap of the boats bottom, the Lakeman had slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly looking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific, downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He cut it; and the whale was free. But, at some distan...
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CHAPTER LV. OF THE MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored alongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon ...
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CHAPTER LVI. OF THE LESS ERRONEOUS PICTURES OF WHALES, AND THE TRUE PICTURES OF WHALING SCENES In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, P...
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The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of Englands experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have nevertheless furnished...
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CHAPTER LVII. OF WHALES IN PAINT; IN TEETH; IN WOOD; IN SHEET-IRON; IN STONE; IN MOUNTAINS; IN STARS On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a crippled beggar (or _kedger_, as the sailors say) holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg. Ther...
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CHAPTER LVIII. BRIT Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat. On the second ...
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CHAPTER LIX. SQUID Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a plain. And still, a...
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CHAPTER LX. THE LINE With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line. The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly vapored with ...
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Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the logger-head there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every mans oar, so that it jogs against his wrist in rowing; and also passing between...
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CHAPTER LXI. STUBB KILLS A WHALE If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different object. When you see him quid, said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow of his hoisted boat, then you quick see him parm whale. The next day was exceedingly still and sultr...
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Start her, start her, my men! Dont hurry yourselves; take plenty of timebut start her; start her like thunder-claps, thats all, cried Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. Start her, now; give em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boystart her, all; but keep cool, keep coolcucumbers is th...
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