Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
The girl, closely attended by Sailor, sprang lightly upon the grating, and following with her eyes Leslie's pointing finger, gazed down into the blue, transparent depths, where she beheld the enormous black bulk of a large sperm whale, lying right up alongside the brig so close to her, indeed, that his starboard fin was right under her bilge, about a third of his length from his blow-holes aft toward his tail showing shiny as polished ebony, some six inches above water, while his ponderous tail stretched away some forty feet or more beyond the taffrail, where it could be clearly seen gently rising and falling to enable him to keep pace with the brig.
For a moment we could see daylight underneath the huge bulk and as we backed water with all our strength it did seem as though that convulsed, eighty barrel sperm must fall upon the boat and overwhelm it! The young second officer's command needed no repetition. There was no temptation for us to linger under the monster.
For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in the opposite quarter this deceitfulness of his could not now be in action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity.
You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth were entirely under your chin.
But in the great Sperm Whale, this high and mighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so immensely amplified, that gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living nature.
Bessie was attracted to the oil-painting on the wall of Abraham Quary, who was the last of the Indian race on the island. Then they examined, in an adjoining room, the curiosities gathered together for public inspection. Here they found the model of the "Camels," and also the jaw of a sperm whale, seventeen feet long, with forty-six teeth and a weight of eight hundred pounds.
What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils? Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff! Knights and Squires. The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent.
He always admitted, though, that the weather he experienced was unprecedented. Still, nothing could shake his belief in the wonderful numbers of sperm whales to be found on the south coasts of New Zealand, which faith was well warranted, since he had there won from the waves, not only the value of his new ship, but a handsome profit in addition, all in one season.
Her sons were not obliged to leave their homes for a five years' voyage, in search of the monster from which they gained their chief maintenance, for there were then good fishing grounds near the shore, and often the whale might be seen from their little island, spouting off in the distance; and their ships came proudly bearing down to the bar, laden heavily with the good sperm oil, and all hearts were made lighter and each purse heavier, with every new arrival of good fortune; as if they had been one great family, each one smiling on another's prosperity.
But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; the rest as silently following. Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with portentousness.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking