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Table of Contents
Chapter 58
BRIT
Steering north-eastward from
the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow
substance, upon which the Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues
it undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless
fields of ripe and golden wheat. On the second day, numbers of Right Whales
were seen, who, secure from the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with
open jaws sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing
fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner
separated from the water that escaped at the lip. As morning mowers, who side
by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass
of marshy meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy,
cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow
sea. ..
2 But it was only the
sound they made as they parted the brit which at all reminded one of mowers.
Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they paused and were stationary for
a while, their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than
anything else. And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at
a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without
knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the
soil; even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of
the leviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their immense
magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of
overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life
that lives in a dog or a horse. Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly
regard any creatures of the deep with the same feelings that you do those of
the shore. For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures
of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general
view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where,
for example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to
the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any generic
respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him. But though, to landsmen in
general, the native inhabitants of the seas have ever been regarded with
emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling; though we know the sea to be an
everlasting terra incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown
worlds to discover his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the
most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately
befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the
waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man
may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future,
that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of
doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest,
stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of
these ..
3 very impressions, man
has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally
belongs to it. The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with
Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a
widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships
of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two
thirds of the fair world it yet covers. Wherein differ the sea and the land,
that a miracle upon one is not a miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors
rested upon the Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and his company the live
ground opened and swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets,
but in precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews. But
not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it is also a
fiend to its own offspring; worse than the Persian host who murdered his own
guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath spawned. Like a savage
tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes
even the mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by
side with the split wrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls
it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the
masterless ocean overruns the globe. Consider the subtleness of the sea; how
its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part,
and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also
the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as
the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more,
the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each
other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. Consider all this; and
then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both,
the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in
yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the
soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but
encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. ..
4 God keep thee! Push
not off from that isle, thou canst never return! ..
5 That part of the sea
known among whalemen as the Brazil Banks does not bear that name as the Banks
of Newfoundland do, because of there being shallows and soundings there, but
because of this remarkable meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts
of brit continually floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is
often chased. ..
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