{"id":"01KJNXJQX29Z725XVF7S2Z13VV","cid":"bafkreic63mm33hbtitc6su2n7rxjtswceug4glt2mt4unb3fndtsy3hua4","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":363830,"char_start":355834,"chunk_index":50,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1999,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you\r\ninto languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime\r\nuneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras\r\nwith startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into\r\nunnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt\r\nsecurities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what\r\nyou shall have for dinner—for all your meals for three years and more\r\nare snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.\r\n\r\nIn one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years’\r\nvoyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the\r\nmast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be\r\ndeplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion\r\nof the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute of\r\nanything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a\r\ncomfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock,\r\na hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small\r\nand snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your\r\nmost usual point of perch is the head of the t’ gallant-mast, where you\r\nstand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen)\r\ncalled the t’ gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the\r\nbeginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull’s horns. To\r\nbe sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in\r\nthe shape of a watch-coat; but properly speaking the thickest\r\nwatch-coat is no more of a house than the unclad body; for as the soul\r\nis glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about\r\nin it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing\r\n(like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a\r\nwatch-coat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or\r\nadditional skin encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of\r\ndrawers in your body, and no more can you make a convenient closet of\r\nyour watch-coat.\r\n\r\nConcerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a\r\nsouthern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents or\r\npulpits, called _crow’s-nests_, in which the look-outs of a Greenland\r\nwhaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In\r\nthe fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled “A Voyage among the\r\nIcebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the\r\nre-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;” in this\r\nadmirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a\r\ncharmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented\r\n_crow’s-nest_ of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet’s\r\ngood craft. He called it the _Sleet’s crow’s-nest_, in honor of\r\nhimself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all\r\nridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children\r\nafter our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and\r\npatentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other\r\napparatus we may beget. In shape, the Sleet’s crow’s-nest is something\r\nlike a large tierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is\r\nfurnished with a movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head\r\nin a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into\r\nit through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or\r\nside next the stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker\r\nunderneath for umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather\r\nrack, in which to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and\r\nother nautical conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his\r\nmast-head in this crow’s-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a\r\nrifle with him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask\r\nand shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or\r\nvagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters; for you cannot\r\nsuccessfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance of the\r\nwater, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it\r\nwas plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does,\r\nall the little detailed conveniences of his crow’s-nest; but though he\r\nso enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a very\r\nscientific account of his experiments in this crow’s-nest, with a small\r\ncompass he kept there for the purpose of counteracting the errors\r\nresulting from what is called the “local attraction” of all binnacle\r\nmagnets; an error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in\r\nthe ship’s planks, and in the Glacier’s case, perhaps, to there having\r\nbeen so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though\r\nthe Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his\r\nlearned “binnacle deviations,” “azimuth compass observations,” and\r\n“approximate errors,” he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was\r\nnot so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail\r\nbeing attracted occasionally towards that well replenished little\r\ncase-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his crow’s nest, within\r\neasy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and\r\neven love the brave, the honest, and learned Captain; yet I take it\r\nvery ill of him that he should so utterly ignore that case-bottle,\r\nseeing what a faithful friend and comforter it must have been, while\r\nwith mittened fingers and hooded head he was studying the mathematics\r\naloft there in that bird’s nest within three or four perches of the\r\npole.\r\n\r\nBut if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as\r\nCaptain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is\r\ngreatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those\r\nseductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used\r\nto lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a\r\nchat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there;\r\nthen ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the\r\ntop-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so\r\nat last mount to my ultimate destination.\r\n\r\nLet me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept\r\nbut sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how\r\ncould I—being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering\r\naltitude—how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all\r\nwhale-ships’ standing orders, “Keep your weather eye open, and sing out\r\nevery time.”\r\n\r\nAnd let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of\r\nNantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with\r\nlean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who\r\noffers to ship with the Phædon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware\r\nof such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be\r\nkilled; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes\r\nround the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor\r\nare these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery\r\nfurnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded\r\nyoung men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking\r\nsentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches\r\nhimself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship,\r\nand in moody phrase ejaculates:—\r\n\r\n\r\n“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand\r\nblubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nVery often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young\r\nphilosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient\r\n“interest” in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost\r\nto all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would\r\nrather not see whales than otherwise."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.682Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.682Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}