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_ 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 day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure
from the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws
sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing
fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that
manner separated from the water that escaped at the lip.
As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance
their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so
these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and
leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.*
*That part of the sea known among whalemen as the "Brazil Banks" does
not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there
being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable
meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually
floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased.
But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at
all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially
when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black
forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else.
And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a
distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants
without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened
elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who for the first
time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea. And even
when recognised at last, their immense magnitude renders it very
hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can
possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life that
lives in a dog or a horse.
Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the
deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For
though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the
land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general
view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties,
where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in
disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog? The
accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear
comparative analogy to him.
But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the
seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and
repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra
incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to
discover his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the
most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and
indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who
have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will
teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and
however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may
augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea
will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest
frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of
these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness
of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.
The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese
vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a
widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the
wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is
not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a
miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the
Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground
opened and swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever
sets, but in precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships
and crews.
But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but
it is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host
who murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself
hath spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle
overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales
against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split
wrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it.
Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider,
the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures
glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously
hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the
devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless
tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks.
Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose
creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the
world began.
Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most
docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you
not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this
appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man
there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed
by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not
off from that isle, thou canst never return! _
Read next: CHAPTER 59 Squid.
Read previous: CHAPTER 57 Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars.
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