The Carpet-Bag
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm,
and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city
of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was on a Saturday
night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little
packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching
that place would offer, till the following Monday.
As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling
stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage,
it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing.
For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft,
because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything
connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me.
Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing
the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket
is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original--
the Tyre of this Carthage;--the place where the first dead
American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did
those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes
to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket,
too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth,
partly laden with imported cobblestones--so goes the story--
to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh
enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?
Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me
in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became
a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile.
It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night,
bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place.
With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few
pieces of silver,--So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself,
as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag,
and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards
the south--wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge
for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price,
and don't be too particular.
With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of
"The Crossed Harpoons"--but it looked too expensive and jolly there.
Further on, from the bright red windows of the "Sword-Fish Inn,"
there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted
the packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere
else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard,
asphaltic pavement,--rather weary for me, when I struck
my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard,
remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most
miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I,
pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street,
and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within.
But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don't you hear? get away
from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way.
So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets that
took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest,
if not the cheeriest inns.
Such dreary streets! Blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand,
and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb.
At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week,
that quarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently
I came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building,
the door of which stood invitingly open. It had a careless look,
as if it were meant for the uses of the public; so, entering,
the first thing I did was to stumble over an ash-box in the porch.
Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these
ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But "The Crossed Harpoons,"
and the "The Sword-Fish?"--this, then must needs be the sign
of "The Trap." However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud
voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.
It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred
black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond,
a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit.
It was a negro church; and the preacher's text was about
the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and
teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out,
Wretched entertainment at the sign of 'The Trap!'
Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from
the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up,
saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it,
faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray,
and these words underneath--"The Spouter Inn:--Peter Coffin."
Coffin?--Spouter?--Rather ominous in that particular connexion,
thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I
suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light
looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough,
and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it
might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district,
and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak
to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings,
and the best of pea coffee.
It was a queer sort of place--a gable-ended old house, one side
palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp
bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up
a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft.
Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one
in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed.
In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,"
says an old writer--of whose works I possess the only copy
extant--"it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest
out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside,
or whether thou observest it from that sashless window,
where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death
is the only glazier." True enough, thought I, as this passage
occurred to my mind--old black-letter, thou reasonest well.
Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house.
What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies though,
and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late
to make any improvements now. The universe is finished;
the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million
years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against
the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters
with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags,
and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep
out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives,
in his red silken wrapper--(he had a redder one afterwards)
pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters;
what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer
climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege
of making my own summer with my own coals.
But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up
to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra
than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along
the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself,
in order to keep out this frost?
Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before
the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg
should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself,
he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs,
and being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks
the tepid tears of orphans.
But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is
plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet,
and see what sort of a place this "Spouter" may be.
