{"id":"01KJNXJV85HH4HYZDCK5VQ0QMX","cid":"bafkreiaxpqd4caixvoin6bsm2c22f4pif5zon7bfsw5w3e3ssscdezcazm","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":986886,"char_start":978939,"chunk_index":138,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1987,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it to\r\nmy taste.\r\n\r\nThe beef was fine—tough, but with body in it. They said it was\r\nbull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know, for\r\ncertain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but substantial,\r\nsymmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that\r\nyou could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were\r\nswallowed. If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their\r\npitching out of you like billiard-balls. The bread—but that couldn’t be\r\nhelped; besides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread\r\ncontained the only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very\r\nlight, and it was very easy to step over into a dark corner when you\r\nate it. But all in all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the\r\ndimensions of the cook’s boilers, including his own live parchment\r\nboilers; fore and aft, I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of\r\ngood fare and plenty; fine flip and strong; crack fellows all, and\r\ncapital from boot heels to hat-band.\r\n\r\nBut why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other\r\nEnglish whalers I know of—not all though—were such famous, hospitable\r\nships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the\r\njoke; and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing? I\r\nwill tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers is\r\nmatter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of\r\nhistorical whale research, when it has seemed needed.\r\n\r\nThe English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders,\r\nZealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant\r\nin the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, touching\r\nplenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English\r\nmerchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence,\r\nin the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and\r\nnatural, but incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some\r\nspecial origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further\r\nelucidated.\r\n\r\nDuring my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an\r\nancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I knew\r\nmust be about whalers. The title was, “Dan Coopman,” wherefore I\r\nconcluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam\r\ncooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was\r\nreinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one\r\n“Fitz Swackhammer.” But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man,\r\nprofessor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus\r\nand St. Pott’s, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a\r\nbox of sperm candles for his trouble—this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as\r\nhe spied the book, assured me that “Dan Coopman” did not mean “The\r\nCooper,” but “The Merchant.” In short, this ancient and learned Low\r\nDutch book treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other\r\nsubjects, contained a very interesting account of its whale fishery.\r\nAnd in this chapter it was, headed, “Smeer,” or “Fat,” that I found a\r\nlong detailed list of the outfits for the larders and cellars of 180\r\nsail of Dutch whalemen; from which list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead,\r\nI transcribe the following:\r\n\r\n400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs. of stock\r\nfish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins\r\nof butter. 20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs. cheese\r\n(probably an inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of\r\nbeer.\r\n\r\nMost statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in\r\nthe present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole\r\npipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer.\r\n\r\nAt the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all this\r\nbeer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were\r\nincidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic\r\napplication; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my\r\nown, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, etc., consumed by\r\nevery Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen\r\nwhale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and\r\nLeyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their\r\nnaturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the\r\nnature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game\r\nin those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux\r\ncountry where the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of\r\ntrain oil.\r\n\r\nThe quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those\r\npolar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that\r\nclimate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen,\r\nincluding the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not\r\nmuch exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their\r\nfleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I\r\nsay, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks’\r\nallowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin.\r\nNow, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might\r\nfancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a\r\nboat’s head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem\r\nsomewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But\r\nthis was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with\r\nthe constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would\r\nbe apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his\r\nboat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.\r\n\r\nBut no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers of\r\ntwo or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English\r\nwhalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when\r\ncruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the\r\nworld, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the\r\ndecanter.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides.\r\n\r\nHitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly\r\ndwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail\r\nupon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough\r\nsweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still\r\nfurther, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters,\r\nand casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost\r\nbones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his\r\nunconditional skeleton.\r\n\r\nBut how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the\r\nfishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the\r\nwhale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures\r\non the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a\r\nspecimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a\r\nfull-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a\r\nroast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been,\r\nIshmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone;\r\nthe privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters,\r\nridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of\r\nleviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and\r\ncheeseries in his bowels.\r\n\r\nI confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far\r\nbeneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed\r\nwith an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged\r\nto, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his\r\npoke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the\r\nheads of the lances."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.109Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.109Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}