第 七十六 章 · The Battering-Ram.

Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale’s head, I would have you,

as a sensible physiologist, simply—particularly remark its front

aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you

investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some

unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may

be lodged there. Here is a vital point; for you must either

satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an

infidel as to one of the most appalling, but not the less true events,

perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history.

You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale,

the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the

water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes

considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long

socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the

mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as

though your own mouth were entirely under your chin. Moreover you

observe that the whale has no external nose; and that what nose he

has—his spout hole—is on the top of his head; you observe that his eyes

and ears are at the sides of his head, nearly one third of his entire

length from the front. Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the

front of the Sperm Whale’s head is a dead, blind wall, without a single

organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are

now to consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part

of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and

not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the

full cranial development. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is

as one wad. Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents

partly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised

of the nature of the substance which so impregnably invests all that

apparent effeminacy. In some previous place I have described to you how

the blubber wraps the body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange.

Just so with the head; but with this difference: about the head this

envelope, though not so thick, is of a boneless toughness, inestimable

by any man who has not handled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the

sharpest lance darted by the strongest human arm, impotently rebounds

from it. It is as though the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved

with horses’ hoofs. I do not think that any sensation lurks in it.

Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indiamen

chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the

sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming

contact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold

there a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest and

toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which

would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By

itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But

supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that as

ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them,

capable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale,

as far as I know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, the

otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head

altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated

out of the water; considering the unobstructed elasticity of its

envelope; considering the unique interior of his head; it has

hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled

honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and

unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to

atmospheric distension and contraction. If this be so, fancy the

irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and

destructive of all elements contributes.

Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable

wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a

mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood

is—by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest

insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the

specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this

expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more

inconsiderable braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all

ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the

Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed

the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your

eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and

sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander

giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials

then? What befell the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess’s veil

at Lais?