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1I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger
2I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical
3feeling was in me; Ahab's quenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster
4against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge. For some time past, though at intervals
5only, the unaccompanied, secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly frequented by the Sperm Whale
6fishermen. But not all of them knew of his existence; only a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen him; while
7the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number
8of whale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery circumference, many of them
9adventurously pushing their quest along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or more on a
10stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any sort; the inordinate length of each separate voyage; the
11irregularity of the times of sailing from home; all these, with other circumstances, direct and indirect, long
12obstructed the spread through the whole world-wide whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby
13Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such
14or such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after doing great mischief to his
15assailants, had completely escaped them; to some minds it was not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in
16question must have been no other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and
17not unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked; therefore it was, that those
18who by accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were content to ascribe
19the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual
20cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded.
21And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance caught sight of him; in the beginning of the
22thing they had every one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any other whale of that
23species. But at length, such calamities did ensue in these assaults--not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles,
24broken limbs, or devouring amputations--but fatal to the last degree of fatality; those repeated disastrous repulses,
25all accumulating and piling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many brave
26hunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventually come. Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate,
27and still the more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow
28out of the very body of all surprising terrible events,--as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in maritime
29life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling
30to. And as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses every other sort of maritime life,
31in the wonderfulness and fearfulness of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only are whalemen as a body
32unexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of all sailors, they are by all odds
33the most directly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing in the sea; face to face they not only
34eye its greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that though you sailed
35a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you would not come to any chiseled hearth-stone, or aught hospitable
36beneath that part of the sun; in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is
37wrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth. No wonder, then, that ever
38gathering volume from the mere transit over the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in the
39end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and half-formed fœtal suggestions of supernatural agencies,
40which eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything that visibly appears. So that in many
41cases such a panic did he finally strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White Whale, few of
42those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his jaw. But there were still other and more vital practical
43influences at work. Not even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished
44from all other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among
45them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would
46perhaps--either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at
47any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who
48have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is restricted to the ignoble
49monster primitively pursued in the North; seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish fireside
50interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the pre-eminent tremendousness of the great
51Sperm Whale anywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him. And as if the now tested
52reality of his might had in former legendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book naturalists--Olassen
53and Povelson--declaring the Sperm Whale not only to be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to
54be so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood. Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier's,
55were these or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of
56the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are "struck with the most lively terrors," and "often in the precipitancy of
57their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death." And however the
58general experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness, even to the
59bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in
60the minds of the hunters. So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few of the fishermen
61recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce
62long practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring warfare; such men protesting that although
63other leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was
64not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are
65some remarkable documents that may be consulted. Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things
66were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater number who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and
67vaguely, without the specific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious accompaniments, were
68sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if offered. One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to
69be linked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick
70was ubiquitous; that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same instant of time. Nor,
71credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit altogether without some faint show of superstitious
72probability. For as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, even to the most erudite
73research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to his
74pursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious and contradictory speculations regarding them,
75especially concerning the mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports himself with such vast
76swiftness to the most widely distant points.
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