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Table of Contents
Chapter 13
WHEELBARROW
wheelbarrow next morning,
Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I
settled my own and comrade's bill; using, however, my comrade's money. The
grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the
sudden friendship which had sprung up between me and Queequeg -- especially as
Peter Coffin's cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed
me concerning the very person whom I now companied with. We borrowed a
wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own poor carpet-bag, and
Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we went down to the Moss, the little
Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf. As we were going along the
people stared; not at Queequeg so much --for they were used to seeing
cannibals like him in their streets, -- but at seeing him and me upon such
confidential terms. But we heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by
turns, and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon
barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore,
and whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in
substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had a
particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of assured stuff,
well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of
whales. In short, like many inland reapers and mowers, who go into the
farmers' meadows armed with their own scythes --though in no wise obliged to
furnished them -- even so, Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred
his own harpoon. Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny
story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The
owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, ..
2 in which to carry his
heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the thing
--though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in which to
manage the barrow --Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it fast; and then
shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. Why, said I, Queequeg, you
might have known better than that, one would think. Didn't the people laugh?
Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of Rokovoko, it
seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts
into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and this punchbowl always
forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held.
Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander
--from all accounts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea
captain --this commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's
sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding
guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, this Captain marches in,
and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself over against the
punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the King, Queequeg's
father. Grace being said, -- for those people have their grace as well as we
--though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such times look downwards to
our platters, they, on the contrary, copying the ducks, glance upwards to the
great Giver of all feasts --Grace, I say, being said, the High Priest opens
the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island; that is, dipping his
consecrated and consecrating fingers into the bowl before the blessed beverage
circulates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting the ceremony,
and thinking himself --being Captain of a ship --as having plain precedence
over a mere island King, especially in the King's own house --the Captain
coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the punch bowl; --taking it i suppose for
a huge finger-glass. now, said Queequeg, what you tink now, --Didn't our
people laugh? At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the
schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On ..
3 one side, New Bedford
rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all glittering in the
clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon
her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and
safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and
coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all
betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long
voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third,
and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the
intolerableness of all earthly effort. Gaining the more open water, the
bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her
bows, as a young colt his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air! --how I
spurned that turnpike earth! --that common highway all over dented with the
marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of
the sea which will permit no records. At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg
seemed to drink and reel with me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed
his filed and pointed teeth. On, on we flew, and our offing gained, the Moss
did homage to the blast; ducked and dived her brows as a slave before the
Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a
wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So full
of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that for
some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a
lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so
companionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a
whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who, by
their intense greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of all
verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him behind his
back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come. Dropping his harpoon, the
brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost miraculous dexterity
and strength, sent him high up bodily into the air; then slightly ..
4 tapping his stern in
mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungs upon his feet, while
Queequeg, turning his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it
to me for a puff. Capting! Capting! yelled the bumpkin, running towards that
officer; Capting, Capting, here's the devil. Hallo, you sir, cried the
Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking up to Queequeg, what in thunder do
you mean by that? Don't you know you might have killed that chap? What him
say? said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. He say, said I, that you came
near kill-e that man there, pointing to the still shivering greenhorn. Kill-e,
cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly expression of
disdain, ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e;
Queequeg kill-e big whale! Look you, roared the Captain, I'll kill-e you, you
cannibal, if you try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye.
But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to mind
his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted the
weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to side,
completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor fellow whom
Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a
panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It
flew from right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and
every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was
done, and nothing seemed capable of being done; those on deck rushed towards
the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an
exasperated whale. In the midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly
to his knees, and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope,
secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso,
caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the
spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the
wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg,
stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long living arc of a leap.
For three ..
5 minutes or more he was
seen swimming like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him, and
by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at
the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had
gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Queequeg now took
an instant's glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters were,
dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he rose again, one arm
still striking out, and with the other dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon
picked them up. The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a
noble trump; the captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg
like a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive. Was there
ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he at all deserved a
medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He only asked for water
--fresh water -- something to wipe the brine off; that done, he put on dry
clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing
those around him, seemed to be saying to himself -- It's a mutual, joint-stock
world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians. ..
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