United States or Andorra ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?
To be sure the same sound was that very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego the Indian's.
"My two men don't understand the ways of these Apamama people, and they'll be quarrelling presently." "Why, certainly, Jim," he said, with such oily effusiveness that I longed to kick him over the side; "but there ain't no need for your men to be scared. * Whalemen's parlance for gossip.
And I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of capture. But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may it not be, that since Adam's time they have degenerated?
And I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of capture. But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may it not be, that since Adam's time they have degenerated?
"Now, boys, give way to your oars, and you, steward, lay me right on to him!" spoke Captain Coffin, and as each man gave a steady pull steward, with a skilful turn of the steering oar, brought the head of the boat round, and the next instant her bow brought up against the body of the whale. Captain Coffin's wish was fulfilled, for, in whalemen's lore, we were "wood and black skin."
It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel, and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?
To be sure the same sound was that very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego the Indian's.
Fifty years ago, when the white cotton canvas of the ships of the American whaling fleet dotted the blue of the Pacific from the west coast of South America to the bleak and snow-clad shores of the Siberian coast, these lonely islands were perhaps better known than they are now, for then, when the smoky flames of the whaleships' try works lit up the night-darkened expanse of the ocean, and the crackling of the furnace fires and the bubble of the boiling oil made the hardy whalemen's hearts grow merry, many a white man, lured by the gentle nature and amiable character of the Ellice Islanders, had built his house of thatch under the shadow of the rustling palms, and dwelt there in peace and happiness and overflowing plenty.
Word Of The Day