{"id":"01KJNXJQYH2NW3R8GRJFHMV778","cid":"bafkreidqzcnbpb3ppvlr5l7sy7h24dxxppc4teojr5gbay5qhivutsvc5q","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":470597,"char_start":462596,"chunk_index":65,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":2001,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that\r\nhad each lost a boat’s crew. For God’s sake, be economical with your\r\nlamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of\r\nman’s blood was spilled for it.\r\n\r\nSecondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale\r\nis an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that\r\nwhen narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold\r\nenormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon my\r\nfacetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of\r\nbeing facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the plagues of\r\nEgypt.\r\n\r\nBut fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon\r\ntestimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm\r\nWhale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously\r\nmalicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy,\r\nand sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale _has_ done it.\r\n\r\nFirst: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket,\r\nwas cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her\r\nboats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of\r\nthe whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping\r\nfrom the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the\r\nship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that\r\nin less than “ten minutes” she settled down and fell over. Not a\r\nsurviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest\r\nexposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats. Being\r\nreturned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific\r\nin command of another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon\r\nunknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly\r\nlost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since.\r\nAt this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen\r\nOwen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy;\r\nI have read his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his\r\nson; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.*\r\n\r\n*The following are extracts from Chace’s narrative: “Every fact seemed\r\nto warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which\r\ndirected his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at\r\na short interval between them, both of which, according to their\r\ndirection, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made\r\nahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the\r\nshock; to effect which, the exact manœuvres which he made were\r\nnecessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated\r\nresentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just\r\nbefore entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as\r\nif fired with revenge for their sufferings.” Again: “At all events, the\r\nwhole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes,\r\nand producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided,\r\ncalculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which\r\nimpressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I am\r\ncorrect in my opinion.”\r\n\r\nHere are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a\r\nblack night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any\r\nhospitable shore. “The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the\r\nfears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon\r\nhidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful\r\ncontemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment’s thought; the\r\ndismal looking wreck, and _the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale_,\r\nwholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance.”\r\n\r\nIn another place—p. 45,—he speaks of “_the mysterious and mortal attack\r\nof the animal_.”\r\n\r\nSecondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807\r\ntotally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic\r\nparticulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter,\r\nthough from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual\r\nallusions to it.\r\n\r\nThirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J——, then\r\ncommanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be\r\ndining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in\r\nthe harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales,\r\nthe Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength\r\nascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily\r\ndenied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout\r\nsloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very\r\ngood; but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set\r\nsail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on\r\nthe way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments’\r\nconfidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the\r\nCommodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made\r\nstraight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not\r\nsuperstitious, but I consider the Commodore’s interview with that whale\r\nas providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a\r\nsimilar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense.\r\n\r\nI will now refer you to Langsdorff’s Voyages for a little circumstance\r\nin point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you\r\nmust know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern’s\r\nfamous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century.\r\nCaptain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter:\r\n\r\n“By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day\r\nwe were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was\r\nvery clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to\r\nkeep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was\r\nnot till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up.\r\nAn uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship\r\nitself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived\r\nby any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full\r\nsail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its\r\nstriking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger,\r\nas this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three\r\nfeet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell\r\naltogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck,\r\nconcluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw\r\nthe monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain\r\nD’Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the\r\nvessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very\r\nhappily it had escaped entirely uninjured.”\r\n\r\nNow, the Captain D’Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in\r\nquestion, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual\r\nadventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of\r\nDorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I\r\nhave particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff.\r\nHe substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large\r\none: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my\r\nuncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.\r\n\r\nIn that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full,\r\ntoo, of honest wonders—the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient\r\nDampier’s old chums—I found a little matter set down so like that just\r\nquoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a\r\ncorroborative example, if such be needed.\r\n\r\nLionel, it seems, was on his way to “John Ferdinando,” as he calls the\r\nmodern Juan Fernandes. “In our way thither,” he says, 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