Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject. For at that time, the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned. Ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca. Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say. I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors’ trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner. Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma originate? I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Those whalemen did not then try out their oil at sea; but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that manner. The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor.

CHAPTER 93. The Castaway.

In the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly. In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour. Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe. It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb’s after-oarsman chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed; and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place. The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness. Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip’s seat. The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him. Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line. In less than half a minute, this entire thing happened. “Damn him, cut!” roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was saved. So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed by yells and execrations from the crew. Stubb then in a plain, business-like, but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially. “Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won’t pick you up if you jump; mind that. We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama.” But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller’s trunk. But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; he did not mean to. But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb’s boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip’s ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. From that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s insanity is heaven’s sense.