{"id":"01KJNXJR0DXFXD3X85TMCG9KS2","cid":"bafkreidviyhar5uxjt2yhyxx75ibptaeekcbx7vcze3437nrresj66fazu","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":633743,"char_start":625849,"chunk_index":88,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1974,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not\r\nso durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and\r\nI will add (since there is an æsthetics in all things), is much more\r\nhandsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark\r\nfellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian\r\nto behold.\r\n\r\nThe whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first\r\nsight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment\r\nits one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and\r\ntwenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal\r\nto three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures\r\nsomething over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is\r\nspirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still\r\nthough, but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely\r\nbedded “sheaves,” or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any\r\nhollow but the “heart,” or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of\r\nthe cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in\r\nrunning out, infallibly take somebody’s arm, leg, or entire body off,\r\nthe utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some\r\nharpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this business,\r\ncarrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a\r\nblock towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all\r\npossible wrinkles and twists.\r\n\r\nIn the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line\r\nbeing continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in\r\nthis; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into\r\nthe boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub,\r\nnearly three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a\r\nrather bulky freight for a craft whose planks are but one half-inch in\r\nthickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which\r\nwill bear up a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a\r\nconcentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the\r\nAmerican line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a\r\nprodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.\r\n\r\nBoth ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an\r\neye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the\r\ntub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything.\r\nThis arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First:\r\nIn order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a\r\nneighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to\r\nthreaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the\r\nharpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug\r\nof ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the first\r\nboat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This\r\narrangement is indispensable for common safety’s sake; for were the\r\nlower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the\r\nwhale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking\r\nminute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed\r\nboat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of\r\nthe sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again.\r\n\r\nBefore lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is\r\ntaken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is\r\nagain carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise\r\nupon the loom or handle of every man’s oar, so that it jogs against his\r\nwrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately\r\nsit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the\r\nextreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size\r\nof a common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it\r\nhangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the\r\nboat again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being\r\ncoiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale\r\nstill a little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp—the\r\nrope which is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to\r\nthat connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too\r\ntedious to detail.\r\n\r\nThus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils,\r\ntwisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the\r\noarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid\r\neye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest\r\nsnakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal\r\nwoman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies,\r\nand while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any\r\nunknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible\r\ncontortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus\r\ncircumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones\r\nto quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit—strange thing! what\r\ncannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes,\r\nand brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you\r\nwill hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus\r\nhung in hangman’s nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before\r\nKing Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of\r\ndeath, with a halter around every neck, as you may say.\r\n\r\nPerhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for those\r\nrepeated whaling disasters—some few of which are casually chronicled—of\r\nthis man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line, and lost.\r\nFor, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is\r\nlike being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a\r\nsteam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and\r\nwheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in\r\nthe heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle,\r\nand you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest\r\nwarning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and\r\nsimultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a\r\nMazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could\r\nnever pierce you out.\r\n\r\nAgain: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and\r\nprophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself;\r\nfor, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and\r\ncontains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal\r\npowder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the\r\nline, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought\r\ninto actual play—this is a thing which carries more of true terror than\r\nany other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men\r\nlive enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their\r\nnecks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death,\r\nthat mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.\r\nAnd if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would\r\nnot at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before\r\nyour evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale.\r\n\r\nIf to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to\r\nQueequeg it was quite a different object.\r\n\r\n“When you see him ’quid,” said the savage, honing his harpoon in the\r\nbow of his hoisted boat, “then you quick see him ’parm whale.”\r\n\r\nThe next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special\r\nto engage them, the Pequod’s crew could hardly resist the spell of\r\nsleep induced by such a vacant 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