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1I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, something like the true form of the whale as he
2actually appears to the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored alongside the whale-ship
3so that he can be fairly stepped upon there. It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious
4imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is
5time to set the world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all wrong. It may be that the primal
6source of all those pictorial delusions will be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For
7ever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble panellings of temples, the pedestals of statues,
8and on shields, medallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of chain-armor like Saladin's, and a
9helmeted head like St. George's; ever since then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not only in most
10popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific presentations of him. Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant
11portrait anyways purporting to be the whale's, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephanta, in India. The
12Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every
13conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came into being. No wonder then, that in
14some sort our noble profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in
15a separate department of the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the
16Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that
17small section of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the broad palms of the true
18whale's majestic flukes. But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter's portrait of this fish;
19for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the
20sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model of such a strange creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting
21the same scene in his own "Perseus Descending," make out one whit better. The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster
22undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its back, and its distended
23tusked mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be taken for the Traitors' Gate leading from the Thames by water
24into the Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah's whale, as depicted in the prints
25of old Bibles and the cuts of old primers. What shall be said of these? As for the book-binder's whale winding like a
26vine-stalk round the stock of a descending anchor--as stamped and gilded on the backs and title-pages of many books both
27old and new--that is a very picturesque but purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures on
28antique vases. Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this book-binder's fish an attempt at a
29whale; because it was so intended when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an old Italian publisher
30somewhere about the 15th century, during the Revival of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a comparatively
31late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of the Leviathan. In the vignettes and other
32embellishments of some ancient books you will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all manner of
33spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the
34title-page of the original edition of the "Advancement of Learning" you will find some curious whales. But quitting all
35these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific
36delineations, by those who know. In old Harris's collection of voyages there are some plates of whales extracted from a
37Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671, entitled "A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter
38Peterson of Friesland, master." In one of those plates the whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among
39ice-isles, with white bears running over their living backs. In another plate, the prodigious blunder is made of
40representing the whale with perpendicular flukes. Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain
41Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled "A Voyage round Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of
42extending the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries." In this book is an outline purporting to be a "Picture of a Physeter or
43Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck." I doubt not
44the captain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines. To mention but one thing about it, let me
45say that it has an eye which applied, according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm whale, would make the
46eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out of
47that eye! Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for the benefit of the young and tender, free
48from the same heinousness of mistake. Look at that popular work "Goldsmith's Animated Nature." In the abridged London
49edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged "whale" and a "narwhale." I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this
50unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one,
51that in this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent public of schoolboys.
52Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacépède, a great naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale
53book, wherein are several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these are not only incorrect, but the
54picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland whale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long experienced man as
55touching that species, declares not to have its counterpart in nature. But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this
56blundering business was reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous Baron. In 1836, he published
57a Natural History of Whales, in which he gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that picture
58to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier's Sperm
59Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of a whaling voyage (such men seldom
60have), but whence he derived that picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor in the same
61field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with
62the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us. As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the
63streets hanging over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally Richard III. whales, with
64dromedary humps, and very savage; breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners: their
65deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue paint.
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