{"id":"01KJNXJQX2FG398WGFD4WGYJGP","cid":"bafkreiaankm2dud4td5vgifsvcca533xsngcs52hcqhtauxx5oru6mso4m","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":356586,"char_start":349024,"chunk_index":49,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1891,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"great delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to\r\nhis credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling\r\nin them at every step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards.\r\n\r\nBut, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived\r\nthere; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were\r\nscarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time,\r\nwhen they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters.\r\n\r\nIn this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale\r\ncaptains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights\r\nthe ship’s cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy alone that\r\nanybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that, in real truth,\r\nthe mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to\r\nhave lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it\r\nwas something as a street-door enters a house; turning inwards for a\r\nmoment, only to be turned out the next; and, as a permanent thing,\r\nresiding in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby; in the cabin\r\nwas no companionship; socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally\r\nincluded in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He\r\nlived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled\r\nMissouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan\r\nof the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the\r\nwinter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old\r\nage, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed\r\nupon the sullen paws of its gloom!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head.\r\n\r\nIt was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the\r\nother seamen my first mast-head came round.\r\n\r\nIn most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost\r\nsimultaneously with the vessel’s leaving her port; even though she may\r\nhave fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper\r\ncruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years’ voyage she\r\nis drawing nigh home with anything empty in her—say, an empty vial\r\neven—then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last; and not till her\r\nskysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether\r\nrelinquish the hope of capturing one whale more.\r\n\r\nNow, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a\r\nvery ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate\r\nhere. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old\r\nEgyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them.\r\nFor though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by\r\ntheir tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all Asia,\r\nor Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great\r\nstone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the\r\ndread gale of God’s wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel\r\nbuilders priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a\r\nnation of mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general\r\nbelief among archæologists, that the first pyramids were founded for\r\nastronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar\r\nstair-like formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with\r\nprodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were\r\nwont to mount to the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the\r\nlook-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing\r\nin sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times,\r\nwho built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole\r\nlatter portion of his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the\r\nground with a tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a\r\ndauntless stander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be driven from his\r\nplace by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing\r\neverything out to the last, literally died at his post. Of modern\r\nstanders-of-mast-heads we have but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron,\r\nand bronze men; who, though well capable of facing out a stiff gale,\r\nare still entirely incompetent to the business of singing out upon\r\ndiscovering any strange sight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of\r\nthe column of Vendome, stands with arms folded, some one hundred and\r\nfifty feet in the air; careless, now, who rules the decks below;\r\nwhether Louis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great\r\nWashington, too, stands high aloft on his towering main-mast in\r\nBaltimore, and like one of Hercules’ pillars, his column marks that\r\npoint of human grandeur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral\r\nNelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in\r\nTrafalgar Square; and ever when most obscured by that London smoke,\r\ntoken is yet given that a hidden hero is there; for where there is\r\nsmoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor\r\nNelson, will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to\r\nbefriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze;\r\nhowever it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate through the\r\nthick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be\r\nshunned.\r\n\r\nIt may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head\r\nstanders of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is not\r\nso, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole\r\nhistorian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us,\r\nthat in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly\r\nlaunched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected\r\nlofty spars along the sea-coast, to which the look-outs ascended by\r\nmeans of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house.\r\nA few years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New\r\nZealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned\r\nboats nigh the beach. But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we\r\nthen to the one proper mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The\r\nthree mast-heads are kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen\r\ntaking their regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other\r\nevery two hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly\r\npleasant the mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is\r\ndelightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks,\r\nstriding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while\r\nbeneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters\r\nof the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous\r\nColossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of\r\nthe sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship\r\nindolently 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."},"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"}}