{"id":"01KJNXJQXG4BQDPNXY2ACS0PDW","cid":"bafkreiccz7fnru7m5cipzohbyk4wnyn7swi5qvo3ahbeklygrxjcblm3de","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":406784,"char_start":398950,"chunk_index":56,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1959,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or\r\nsuch a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity,\r\nwhich whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, had\r\ncompletely escaped them; to some minds it was not an unfair\r\npresumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been no other\r\nthan Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked\r\nby various and not unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cunning, and\r\nmalice in the monster attacked; therefore it was, that those who by\r\naccident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps,\r\nfor the most part, were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred,\r\nmore, as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large,\r\nthan to the individual cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous\r\nencounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popularly\r\nregarded.\r\n\r\nAnd as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance\r\ncaught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had every one\r\nof them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any\r\nother whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue\r\nin these assaults—not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken\r\nlimbs, or devouring amputations—but fatal to the last degree of\r\nfatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and\r\npiling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake\r\nthe fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White\r\nWhale had eventually come.\r\n\r\nNor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more\r\nhorrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do\r\nfabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising\r\nterrible events,—as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in\r\nmaritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors\r\nabound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to.\r\nAnd as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery\r\nsurpasses every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and\r\nfearfulness of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only\r\nare whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and\r\nsuperstitiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of all sailors, they\r\nare by all odds the most directly brought into contact with whatever is\r\nappallingly astonishing in the sea; face to face they not only eye its\r\ngreatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such\r\nremotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a\r\nthousand shores, you would not come to any chiseled hearth-stone, or\r\naught hospitable beneath that part of the sun; in such latitudes and\r\nlongitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is\r\nwrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many\r\na mighty birth.\r\n\r\nNo wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over\r\nthe widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in\r\nthe end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and\r\nhalf-formed fœtal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which\r\neventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything\r\nthat visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally\r\nstrike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White\r\nWhale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his\r\njaw.\r\n\r\nBut there were still other and more vital practical influences at work.\r\nNot even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm\r\nWhale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the\r\nleviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are\r\nthose this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous\r\nenough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would\r\nperhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or\r\ntimidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there\r\nare plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not\r\nsailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered\r\nthe Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is\r\nrestricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North;\r\nseated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish\r\nfireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern\r\nwhaling. Nor is the pre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale\r\nanywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows\r\nwhich stem him.\r\n\r\nAnd as if the now tested reality of his might had in former legendary\r\ntimes thrown its shadow before it; we find some book\r\nnaturalists—Olassen and Povelson—declaring the Sperm Whale not only to\r\nbe a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be\r\nso incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood.\r\nNor even down to so late a time as Cuvier’s, were these or almost\r\nsimilar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron\r\nhimself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks\r\nincluded) are “struck with the most lively terrors,” and “often in the\r\nprecipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with\r\nsuch violence as to cause instantaneous death.” And however the general\r\nexperiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in\r\ntheir full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the\r\nsuperstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of their\r\nvocation, revived in the minds of the hunters.\r\n\r\nSo that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few\r\nof the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days\r\nof the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long\r\npractised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring\r\nwarfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be\r\nhopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition\r\nas the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would be\r\ninevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are\r\nsome remarkable documents that may be consulted.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things\r\nwere ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater number who,\r\nchancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the\r\nspecific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious\r\naccompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if\r\noffered.\r\n\r\nOne of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be linked\r\nwith the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, was\r\nthe unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous; that he had\r\nactually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same\r\ninstant of time.\r\n\r\nNor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit\r\naltogether without some faint show of superstitious probability. For as\r\nthe secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged,\r\neven to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm\r\nWhale when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to\r\nhis pursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious\r\nand contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning\r\nthe mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he\r\ntransports himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant\r\npoints.\r\n\r\nIt is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and\r\nas well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby,\r\nthat some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose\r\nbodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the 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