.. < chapter lxxxvii 6  THE GRAND ARMADA >


     The long and narrow peninsula of

Malacca, extending south-eastward from the territories of Birmah, forms the

most southerly point of all Asia.  In a continuous line from that peninsula

stretch the long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many

others, form a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with

Australia, and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly

studded oriental archipelagoes.  This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports

for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are the

straits of Sunda and Malacca.  By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels

bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas.  Those narrow straits

of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing midway in that vast rampart

of islands, buttressed by that bold green promontory, known to seamen as

Java Head; they not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into

some vast walled empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices,

and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of

that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature,

that such treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear

the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping

western world.  The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those

domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the

Baltic, and the Propontis.  Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not demand the

obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from the endless procession of ships

.. <p 378 >

before the wind, which for centuries past, by night and by day, have passed

between the islands of Sumatra and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes

of the east.  But while they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by

no means renounce their claim to more solid tribute.  Time out of mind the

piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the low shaded coves and islets

of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the vessels sailing through the straits,

fiercely demanding tribute at the point of their spears.  Though by the

repeated bloody chastisements they have received at the hands of European

cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed;


     yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and American

vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.


     With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these straits;

Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and thence, cruising

northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and there by the Sperm

whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and gain the far coast of

Japan, in time for the great whaling season there.  By these means, the

circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the known Sperm Whale cruising

grounds of the world, previous to descending upon the Line in the Pacific;

where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon

giving battle to Moby Dick, in the sea he was most known to frequent; and at

a season when he might most reasonably be presumed to be haunting it.  But how

now?  in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land?  does his crew drink air?

Surely, he will stop for water.  Nay.  For a long time, now, the circus-running

sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what's in

himself.  So Ahab.  Mark this, too, in the whaler.  While other hulls are

loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves; the

world-wandering whale-ship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their

weapons and their wants.  She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample

hold.  She is ballasted with utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead

and kentledge.  She carries years' water in her.  Clear old prime Nantucket

water; which, when three years afloat, the Nantucketer,

.. <p 379 >

in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday

rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams.  Hence it is, that,

while other ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again,

touching at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not

have sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating

seamen like themselves.  So that did you carry them the news that another

flood had come; they would only answer -- Well, boys, here's the ark!  Now,

as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of Java, in the

near vicinity of the straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of the ground,

roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an excellent spot for

cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more and more upon Java Head, the

look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep wide awake.  But

though the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboard bow,

and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet

not a single jet was descried.  Almost renouncing all thought of falling in

with any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when

the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of

singular magnificence saluted us.  But here be it premised, that owing to the

unwearied activity with which of late they have been hunted over all four

oceans, the Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small

detached companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in

extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would

almost seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and

covenant for mutual assistance and protection.  To this aggregation of the

Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that

even in the best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and

months together, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be

suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands.  Broad on

both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great

semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of

whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air.  Unlike the

straight perpendicular

.. <p 380 >

twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, falls over in two

branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single

forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of

white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.  Seen from the

Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host

of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a

blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys

of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some

horseman on a height.  As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in

the mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous

passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the

plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward

through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle,

and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.  Crowding all sail

the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers handling their weapons, and

loudly cheering from the heads of their yet suspended boats.  If the wind only

held, little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits of Sunda,

the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture

of not a few of their number.  And who could tell whether, in that congregated

caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the

worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese!  So

with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these

leviathans before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard,

loudly directing attention to something in our wake.  Corresponding to the

crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear.  It seemed formed of

detached white vapors, rising and falling something like the spouts of the

whales; only they did not so completely come and go; for they constantly

hovered, without finally disappearing.  Levelling his glass at this sight,

ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole, crying, aloft there, and rig whips

and buckets to wet the sails; --Malays, sir, and after us!

.. <p 381 >

As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should fairly

have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot pursuit, to

make up for their over-cautious delay.  But when the swift Pequod, with a fresh

leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how very kind of these tawny

philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to her own chosen pursuit, --

mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they were.  As with glass under arm,

Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his forward turn beholding the monsters he

chased, and in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some

such fancy as the above seemed his.  And when he glanced upon the green walls

of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him

that through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that

through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly

end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman

atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their curses; --when

all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's brow was left gaunt

and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stormy tide has been gnawing

it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its place.  But thoughts

like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and when, after steadily

dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the Pequod at last shot by the

vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra side, emerging at last upon the

broad waters beyond; then, the harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the

swift whales had been gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship

had so victoriously gained upon the Malays.  But still driving on in the wake

of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the ship

neared them; and the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the

boats.  But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of

the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them,

--though as yet a mile in their rear, --than they rallied again, and forming in

close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like flashing

lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity.  Stripped to our

shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash,

.. <p 382 >

and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase,

when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating token that

they were now at last under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert

irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he

is gallied.  The compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto

rapidly and steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout;

and like King Porus' elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander, they

seemed going mad with consternation.  In all directions expanding in vast

irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short

thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic.  This

was still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely

paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on

the sea.  Had these leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over

the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced such

excessive dismay.  But this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost

all herding creatures.  Though banding together in tens of thousands, the

lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before a solitary horseman.

Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of

a theatre's pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush

helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and

remorselessly dashing each other to death.  Best, therefore, withhold

.. <p 383 >

any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly

of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of

men.  Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,

yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor

retreated, but collectively remained in one place.  As is customary in those

cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one lone whale on

the outskirts of the shoal.  In about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon

was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray in our faces, and then

running away with us like light, steered straight for the heart of the herd.

Though such a movement on the part of the whale struck under such

circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and indeed is almost always more

or less anticipated; yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes

of the fishery.  For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into

the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a

delirious throb.  As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer


     power of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as

we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by

the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was like a

ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer through their

complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what moment it may be

locked in and crushed.  But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully;

now sheering off from this monster directly across our route in advance; now

edging away from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while

all the time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of

our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time

to make long ones.  Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted

duty was now altogether dispensed with.  They chiefly attended to the shouting

part of the business.  Out of the way, Commodore!  cried one, to a great

dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant

threatened to swamp us.  Hard down with your tail, there!  cried a second

.. <p 384 >

to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed calmly cooling himself with

his own fan-like extremity.  All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances,


     originally invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs.  Two thick

squares of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they

cross each other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is

then attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line

being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon.  It is chiefly

among gallied whales that this drugg is used.  For then, more whales are close

round you than you can possibly chase at one time.  But sperm whales are not

every day encountered; while you may, then, you must kill all you can.  And

if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing them, so that they can be

afterwards killed at your leisure.  Hence it is, that at times like these the

drugg comes into requisition.  Our boat was furnished with three of them.

The first and second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales

staggeringly running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the

towing drugg.  They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball.

But upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy

wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an

instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the boat's

bottom as the seat slid from under him.  On both sides the sea came in at the

wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so

stopped the leaks for the time.  It had been next to impossible to dart these

drugged-harpoons, were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's

way greatly diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further

from the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning.  So

that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways

vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we glided

between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if from some

mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake.  Here the storms in the

roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt.  In this

central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a

sleek, produced

.. <p 385 >

by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods.  Yes,

we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every

commotion.  And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the

outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in

each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a

ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might

easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have gone round on their

backs.  Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales, more

immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of

escape was at present afforded us.  We must watch for a breach in the living

wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut

us up.  Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by

small tame cows and calves; the women and children of this routed host.  Now,

inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving outer

circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in any one of

those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by the whole

multitude, must have contained at least two or three square miles.  At any

rate --though indeed such a test at such a time might be deceptive --spoutings

might be discovered from our low boat that seemed playing up almost from the

rim of the horizon.  I mention this circumstance, because, as if the cows and

calves had been purposely locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the

wide extent of the herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise

cause of its stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and

every way innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these

smaller whales --now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the

lake --evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still

becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at.  Like household dogs

they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and touching them;


     till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them.

Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs with his

lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time refrained from darting

it.

.. <p 386 >

But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still

stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side.  For, suspended in

those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the whales,

and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers.  The

lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent;

and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the

breast, as if leading two different lives at the time; and while yet drawing

mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly

reminiscence; --even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards

us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulf-weed in their new-born

sight.  floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us.

One of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a

day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet

in girth.  He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet

recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the

maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring,

the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow.  The delicate side-fins, and

the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the plaited crumpled

appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from foreign parts.  Line!  line!

cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; him fast!  him fast! --Who line

him!  Who struck?  Two whale; one big, one little!  What ails ye, man?

cried Starbuck.  Look-e here, said Queequeg pointing down.  As when the

stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of fathoms of rope;

as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows the slackened curling

line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw

long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub

seemed still tethered to its dam.  Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the

chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled

with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped.  Some of the

subtlest secrets of the seas

.. <p 387 >

seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond.  We saw young Leviathan amours

in the deep.  And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of

consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre

freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely

revelled in dalliance and delight.  But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic

of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and

while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep

inland there i still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.  Meanwhile, as we

thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic spectacles in the distance

evinced the activity of the other boats, still engaged in drugging the whales

on the frontier of the host; or possibly carrying on the war within the first


     circle, where abundance of room and some convenient retreats were afforded

them.  But the sight of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly

darting to and fro across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our

eyes.  It is sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly

powerful and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or

maiming his gigantic tail-tendon.  It is done by darting a short-handled

cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again.  A

whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not effectually,

as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along with him half of

the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of the wound, he was now

dashing among the revolving circles like the lone mounted desperado

.. <p 388 >

Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay wherever he went.  But

agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling spectacle enough,

any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed to inspire the rest of

the herd, was owing to a cause which at first the intervening distance

obscured from us.  But at length we perceived that by one of the unimaginable

accidents of the fishery, this whale had become entangled in the harpoon-line

that he towed; he had also run away with the cutting-spade in him; and while

the free end of the rope attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in

the coils of the harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had

worked loose from his flesh.  So that tormented to madness, he was now

churning through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and

tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own comrades.

this terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their stationary

fright.  First, the whales forming the margin of our lake began to crowd a

little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted by half spent billows

from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to heave and swell; the

submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished; in more and more

contracting orbits the whales in the more central circles began to swim in

thickening clusters.  Yes, the long calm was departing.  A low advancing hum

was soon heard; and then like to the tumultuous masses of block-ice when the

great river Hudson breaks up in Spring, the entire host of whales came

tumbling upon their inner centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common

mountain.  Instantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking

the stern.  Oars!  Oars!  he intensely whispered, seizing the helm -- gripe

your oars, and clutch your souls, now!  My God, men, stand by!  Shove him off,

you Queequeg --the whale there! --prick him! --hit him!  Stand up --stand up, and

stay so!  Spring, men -- pull, men; never mind their backs --scrape them!

--scrape away!  The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks,

leaving a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths.  But by desperate

endeavor we at last shot into a temporary

.. <p 389 >

opening; then giving way rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching

for another outlet.  After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last

swiftly glided into what had just been one of the outer circles, but now

crossed by random whales, all violently making for one centre.  This lucky

salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while

standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean

from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad

flukes close by.  Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was,

it soon resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having

clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their onward

flight with augmented fleetness.  Further pursuit was useless; but the boats

still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales might be dropped

astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waifed.  The

waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried by every boat;

and which, when additional game is at hand, are inserted upright into the

floating body of a dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea, and also

as token of prior possession, should the boats of any other ship draw near.

The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious saying

in the Fishery, --the more whales the less fish.  Of all the drugged whales

only one was captured.  The rest contrived to escape for the time, but only

to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some other craft than the Pequod.


.. <p 382n. >

To gally, or gallow, is to frighten excessively --to confound with fright.

It is an old Saxon word.  It occurs once in Shakespeare: -- The wrathful skies


     Gallow the very wanderers of the dark And make them keep their caves.  To

common language, the word is now completely obsolete.  When the polite

landsman first hears it from the gaunt Nantucketer, he is apt to set it

down as one of the whaleman's self-derived savageries.  Much the same is it

with many other sinewy Saxonisms of this sort, which emigrated to

New-England rocks with the noble brawn of the old English emigrants in the

time of the Commonwealth.  Thus, some of the best and furthest-descended

English words --the etymological Howards and Percys --are now democratised, nay,

plebeianised --so to speak --in the New World.

.. <p 387n. >

The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike

most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestation

which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a time;

though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and Jacob: -- a

contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously situated, one

on each side of the anus; but the breasts themselves extend upwards from

that.  When by chance these precious parts in a nursing whale are cut by the

hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolor

the sea for rods.  The milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by

man; it might do well with strawberries.  When overflowing with mutual

esteem, the whales salute more hominum.

.. <p 389 >