Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Whale Decapitation Precautions

During decapitation of the whale, the operator’s instrument approaches very close to where an entrance will be subsequently forced into the spermaceti magazine. Therefore, the operator must exercise extreme caution to prevent a careless, untimely stroke from invading this sanctuary and wastefully releasing its invaluable contents. The decapitated end of the head is eventually elevated out of the water and retained in position by enormous cutting tackles, whose complex rope arrangements create quite a wilderness of hempen combinations in that quarter.

Tapping the Heidelburgh Tun

With the preliminary anatomical context established, the narrative invites the reader to attend to the extraordinary and potentially fatal operation by which the sperm whale’s great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped.

第七十八章 Cistern and Buckets.

This chapter narrates a dramatic incident during the tryworks of the Pequod, involving the harpooner Tashtego and his near-fatal fall into the sperm whale’s head, ultimately rescued by Queequeg.

Tashtego climbs to bail the Tun

Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft and runs out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm directly over the hoisted Tun. He secures a light tackle called a whip, consisting of two parts traveling through a single-sheaved block, and descends hand-over-hand to the summit of the whale’s head. From this elevated position, he resembles a Turkish Muezzin calling people to prayer from a tower. Using a short-handled spade, he cautiously searches for the proper place to break into the Tun, sounding the walls like a treasure-hunter. A stout iron-bound bucket, like a well-bucket, is attached to one end of the whip while the other end is stretched across the deck, held by several hands. Tashtego guides the bucket into the Tun using a very long pole, and it returns bubbling with sperm, like a dairy-maid’s pail of new milk. This process continues until nearly twenty feet of the pole have been forced down into the cistern.