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1Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious
2anomaly of the most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship. It is as if from the
3open field a brick-kiln were transported to her planks. The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the
4most roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an almost
5solid mass of brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The foundation does not penetrate the
6deck, but the masonry is firmly secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all sides, and screwing
7it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened
8hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in number, and each of several barrels' capacity. When
9not in use, they are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone and sand, till they shine within
10like silver punch-bowls. During the night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil themselves away
11there for a nap. While employed in polishing them--one man in each pot, side by side--many confidential communications
12are carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand
13try-pot of the Pequod, with the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first indirectly struck by the
14remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from any
15point in precisely the same time. Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare masonry of that side
16is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted
17with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a
18shallow reservoir extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel inserted at the rear, this
19reservoir is kept replenished with water as fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they open direct from
20the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment. It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works were
21first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee the business. "All ready there? Off hatch, then,
22and start her. You cook, fire the works." This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting his shavings into
23the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be
24fed for a time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a word,
25after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its
26unctuous properties. These fritters feed the flames. Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope,
27once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his
28smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time. It has an
29unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left
30wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit. By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear
31from the carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean darkness was intense. But that darkness
32was licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated every lofty
33rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some
34vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight
35harbors, with broad sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and folded them in conflagrations.
36The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the
37Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing
38masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of
39the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch
40of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further
41side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise
42employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now
43all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all
44these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other their unholy
45adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like
46the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged
47forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot
48her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in
49her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with
50fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her
51monomaniac commander's soul. So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of
52this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the
53madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half
54in fire, these at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable drowsiness
55which ever would come over me at a midnight helm. But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable)
56thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The
57jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in
58the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically
59stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no compass before me to steer by; though it
60seemed but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed
61before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever
62swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark,
63bewildered feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that
64the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief
65sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In an
66instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very probably capsizing her.
67How glad and how grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being
68brought by the lee! Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not
69thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness
70makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in
71the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only
72true lamp--all others but liars!
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