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Table of Contents
Chapter 45
THE AFFIDAVIT
So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as indirectly touching one or two
very interesting and curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the
foregoing chapter, in its earliest part, is as important a one as will be
found in this volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still
further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately
understood, and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound
ignorance of the entire subject may ..
2 induce in some minds,
as to the natural verity of the main points of this affair. I care not to
perform this part of my task methodically; but shall be content to produce the
desired impression by separate citations of items, practically or reliably
known to me as a whaleman; and from these citations, I take it --the
conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of itself. First: I have personally
known three instances where a whale, after receiving a harpoon, has effected a
complete escape; and, after an interval (in one instance of three years), has
been again struck by the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked
by the same private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance
where three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I
think it may have been something more than that; the man who darted them
happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa,
went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far into the
interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, often
endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the other
common perils incident to wandering in the heart of unknown regions.
Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been on its travels; no
doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with its flanks all
the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. This man and this whale again came
together, and the one vanquished the other. I say I, myself, have known three
instances similar to this; that is in two of them I saw the whales struck;
and, upon the second attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut
in them, afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it
so fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the last
time distinctly recognized a peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale's eye,
which I had observed there three years previous. I say three years, but I am
pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances, then, which I
personally know the truth of; but I have heard of many other instances from
persons whose veracity in the matter there is no good ground to impeach.
secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, ..
3 however ignorant the
world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable historical
instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at distant times and
places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became thus marked was not
altogether and originally owing to his bodily peculiarities as distinguished
from other whales; for however peculiar in that respect any chance whale may
be, they soon put an end to his peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him
down into a peculiarly valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the
fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of
perilousness about such a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch
that most fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their
tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without
seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils
ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they make distant
unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the
acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for their
presumption. But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great
individual celebrity --nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown; not only was
he famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death, but
he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of a name;
had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom!
thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long did'st lurk in the
Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen from the palmy beach
of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that
crossed their wakes in the vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O
Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the
semblance of a snow-white cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel!
thou Chilian whale, marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon
the back! In plain prose, here are four whales as well known to the students
of Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar. But this is not
all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various times creating great
havoc among the boats of different ..
4 vessels, were finally
gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed by valiant
whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with that express object as much
in view, as in setting out through the Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of
old had it in his mind to capture that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the
headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip. I do not know where I can find a
better place than just here, to make mention of one or two other things, which
to me seem important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the
reasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the
catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances where truth
requires full as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of
some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some
hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they
might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more
detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. First: Though most men have
some vague flitting ideas of the general perils of the grand fishery, yet they
have nothing like a fixed, vivid conception of those perils, and the frequency
with which they recur. One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the
actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public
record at home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do
you suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the
whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the bottom of
the sea by the sounding leviathan --do you suppose that that poor fellow's
name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read to-morrow at your
breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular between here and New
Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be called regular news direct or
indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell you that upon one particular voyage which
I made to the Pacific, among many others we spoke thirty different ships,
every one of which had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and
three that had each lost a boat's crew. For God's sake, be economical with
your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's
blood was spilled for it. ..
5 Secondly: People
ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale is an enormous creature
of enormous power; but I have ever found that when narrating to them some
specific example of this two-fold enormousness, they have significantly
complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no
more idea of being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the
plagues of Egypt. But fortunately the special point I here seek can be
established upon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this:
The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and
judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly
destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale has done it.
First: In the year the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, was cruising
in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her boats, and gave
chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales were
wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued
from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. dashing his forehead
against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than ten minutes she
settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank of her has been seen since.
After the severest exposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats.
Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific
in command of another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown
rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and
forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since. At this day
Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was
chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his plain and
faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all this within a few
miles of the scene of the catastrophe. ..
6 Secondly: The ship
Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year totally lost off the Azores by a
similar onset, but the authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never
chanced to encounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard
casual allusions to it. Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore
J--- then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to
be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in the
harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, the
Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed
to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily denied for
example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her
to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some
weeks after, the commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso.
But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few
moments' confidential business with him. that business consisted in fetching
the Commodore's craft ..
7 such a thwack, that
with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down
and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore's interview
with that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from
unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no
nonsense. I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little
circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff,
you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern's
famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. Captain
Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter. By the thirteenth of May our
ship was ready to sail, and the next day we were out in the open sea, on our
way to Ochotsh. The weather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold
that we were obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very
little wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the
northwest sprang up. An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger
than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not
perceived by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full
sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking
against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic
creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the
water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were
below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon
some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost
gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to
examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but
we found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured. now, the captain
d'wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in question, is a New Englander,
who, after a long life of unusual adventures as a sea-captain, this day
resides in the village of Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a
nephew of his. I have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in
Langsdorff. He substantiates every word. ..
8 The ship, however, was
by no means a large one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and
purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from
home. In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too,
of honest wonders --the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier's old
chums --I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted from
Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a corroborative
example, if such be needed. Lionel, it seems, was on his way to John
Ferdinando, as he calls the modern Juan Fernandes. In our way thither, he
says, about four o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and
fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which
put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were
or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, the
shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the ship had
struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little over, we cast the
lead, and sounded, but found no ground. The suddenness of the shock made the
guns leap in their carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their
hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his
cabin! Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to
substantiate the imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere
about that time, did actually do great mischief along the spanish land. but i
should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of the morning,
the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull
from beneath. I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another
known to me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In
more than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing
boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long withstand
all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship Pusie Hall can
tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, let me say, that there
have been examples where the lines attached to ..
9 a running sperm whale
have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and secured there; the whale
towing her great hull through the water, as a horse walks off with a cart.
Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm whale, once struck, is
allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often with blind rage, as with
wilful, deliberate designs of destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without
conveying some eloquent indication of his character, that upon being attacked
he will frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for
several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more and a
concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which you
will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in this book
corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like
all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time
we say amen with Solomon --Verily there is nothing new under the sun. In the
sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate of
Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius general.
As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work every way of
uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been considered a most
trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in some one or two
particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently to be mentioned. Now,
in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term of his
prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured in the
neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed vessels at
intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty years. A fact thus
set down in substantial history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any
reason it should be. Of what precise species this sea-monster was, is not
mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons, he must
have been a whale; and I am strongly inclined to think a sperm whale. And I
will tell you why. For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had been
always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it.
Even now I am certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in
the present constitution of ..
10 things, a place for
his habitual gregarious resort. But further investigations have recently
proved to me, that in modern times there have been isolated instances of the
presence of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good
authority, that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy
found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes
through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, pass
out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis. In the Propontis, as far as I can
learn, none of that peculiar substance called brit is to be found, the aliment
of the right whale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of the
sperm whale --squid or cuttle-fish --lurks at the bottom of that sea, because
large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at
its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and reason
upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all human
reasoning, Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships of
a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale. ..
11 The following are
extracts from Chace's narrative: Every fact seemed to warrant me in concluding
that it was anything but chance which directed his operations; he made two
several attacks upon the ship, at a short interval between them, both of
which, according to their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury,
by being made ahead, and thereby ..
12 combining the speed
of the two objects for the shock; to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which
he made were necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated
resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just before
entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with
revenge for their sufferings. Again: At all events, the whole circumstances
taken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time,
impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the part of the
whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be
satisfied that I am correct in my opinion. Here are his reflections some time
after quitting the ship, during a black night in an open boat, when almost
despairing of reaching any hospitable shore. The dark ocean and swelling
waters were nothing; the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest,
or dashed upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful
contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; the dismal
looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale, wholly
engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance. In another
place --p. 45, --he speaks of the mysterious and mortal attack of the animal.
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