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 lips.
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.*
*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.
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 recognized 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
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 off-spring;
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.
God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!
