Moby Dick

these Leviathans, in small pods, were encountered much
oftener than at present, and, in consequence, the voyages
were not so prolonged, and were also much more remunerative.
Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, influenced by
some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense caravans,
so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes,
and pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into
vast but widely separated, unfrequent armies.  That is all.
And equally fallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called
whale-bone whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years
abounding with them, hence that species also is declining.
For they are only being driven from promontory to cape; and if
one coast is no longer enlivened with their jets, then, be sure,
some other and remoter strand has been very recently startled
by the unfamiliar spectacle.

Furthermore:  concerning these last mentioned Leviathans,
they have two firm fortresses, which, in all human probability,
will for ever remain impregnable.  And as upon the invasion of
their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains;
so, hunted from the savannas and glades of the middle seas,
the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their Polar citadels,
and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and walls there,
come up among icy fields and floes! and in a charmed circle
of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man.

But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned
for one cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have
concluded that this positive havoc has already very seriously
diminished their battalions.  But though for some time past
a number of these whales, not less than 13,000, have been
annually slain on the nor'west coast by the Americans alone;
yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance
of little or no account as an opposing argument in this matter.

Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness
of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we
say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one
hunting the King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions
elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes.
And there seems no reason to doubt that if these elephants,
which have now been hunted for thousands of years, by Semiramis,
by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the successive monarchs of the East--
if they still survive there in great numbers, much more may
the great whale outlast all hunting, since he has a pasture
to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all Asia,
both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles
of the sea combined.

Moreover:  we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity
of whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more,
therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult
generations must be contemporary.  And what this is, we may soon
gain some idea of, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries,
and family vaults of creation yielding up the live bodies of all
the men, women, and children who were alive seventy-five years ago;
and adding this countless host to the present human population
of the globe.

Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal
in his species, however perishable in his individuality.
He swam the seas before the continents broke water; he once
swam over the site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle,
and the Kremlin.  In Noah's flood he despised Noah's Ark;
and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands,
to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still survive,
and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood,
spout his frothed defiance to the skies.



CHAPTER 106

Ahab's Leg



The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted
the Samuel Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small
violence to his own person.  He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart
of his boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock.
And when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there,
he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman
(it was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough);
then, the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist
and wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to all
appearances lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy.

And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all
his pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab, did at times give careful
heed to the condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood.
For it had not been very long prior to the Pequod's sailing
from Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying prone upon
the ground, and insensible; by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable,
unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb having been so violently displaced,
that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced his groin;
nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound
was entirely cured.

Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind,