الفصل الفصل 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.*

*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 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 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!