White whale

“ That instant, the White Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines; by so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and Flask towards his flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on a surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch. ”

“ A gentle joyousness—a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam. ”

“ Here have I heard all their chat just now, and the white whale—shirr! shirr!—but spoken of once! and only this evening—it makes me jingle all over like my tambourine—that anaconda of an old man swore ’em in to hunt him! Oh, thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no bowels to feel fear! ”

“ In looking up the life history of the white whale when opportunity offered, during the last twenty years I have consulted many old whalemen, and they all say that whales of all kinds take their babies on their flukes and scull them along as my female sculled her dying and dead partner. ”

“ The White Whale, or Beluga, is included among the dolphins. The body is white, tinged with yellow, or{411} rose-colour, and its proportions are more agreeable than those of most of the cetacea. It measures from twelve to eighteen feet in length. White Whales are gregarious, assembling in flocks or herds, and playing about with rapid and graceful movements. The female has two young ones at a time, over which she watches with the greatest apparent affection. They follow all her movements, and do not quit her till they are nearly full grown. ”

“ The contrast between the livid whiteness of the mollusc’s body and the massive blackness of the whale,—the convulsive writhing of the tremendous arms, as, like a Medusa’s head magnified a thousand times, they wound and gripped about the columnar head of the great mammal,—made a picture unequalled in all the animal world for intense interest. The immense eyes, at least a foot in diameter, glared out of the dead white of the head, inky black, appalling in their fixity of gaze. ”

“ However, these families include such unique forms as the killer whale, narwhal, white whale (or beluga as it is known to the Eskimos) , and the pilot or black whale. Generally one associates cetaceans with the ocean, so it may come as a surprise to find that four dolphin species live in such major rivers as the Amazon, La Plata, Ganges, and the Yangtze.
In dolphins, the mouth protrudes beyond the head as a beak or snout, and in porpoises, the front of the head is blunt or gently rounded. It is impossible to avoid confusion if one uses common names to separate the various whales. ”

“ His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. ”

“ When the white whale is stopped by the net, it often appears388 at first to be unconscious of the fact, and continues to swim against it, and then allows the boat to approach it from behind. If entangled in the net, it is soon drowned, as, like all the whale tribe, it is obliged to come to the surface to breathe. ”

“ The peeled white body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal. Slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats further and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats, what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous din. ”

“ Occasionally we were called to look over the rail and see the fin-back whale sending his spout in a spiral column towards the clouds; or the blackfish, grampus, or porpoise, gambolling amongst the great waves. At times the scene was diversified by the appearance of the shark, dolphin, benita, and flying-fish, each preying on the other. The last three mentioned are easily caught, and are eagerly angled for by seamen. The manner of catching the dolphin and skip-jack is to bait the hook with a piece of white rag, and allow it to sway with the vessel’s motion. ”

“ Unlike, for instance, the straight perpendicular [Pg 71] twin jets of the "right whale," the single, forward-slanting "spout" of the sperm whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist. Each whale has a different mode and time of breathing, and the form of the "spout" differs accordingly.
It is said that the blowing of the Beluga, or "White Whale," is not unmusical at sea, and that when it takes place under water it often makes a peculiar sound which might be mistaken for the whistling of a bird. Hence is derived one of the names given to this whale by sailors—the "Sea-canary." ”

“ There are various other kinds of whale of a smaller description, among which we may mention the broad-nosed whale, the beaked whale, and the finner, which are sometimes found off Norway and Shetland, but as they do not yield much oil, they are not thought worth the killing. The white whale is so shy an animal that it can seldom be killed with either a rifle-ball or harpoon, and is therefore generally captured by means of a net. ”

“ Whalers must process the whales quickly, for otherwise, at the elevated body temperature, decomposition proceeds most rapidly and ruins much of the meat. It is possible that the baleen-bearing whales do not cross the warm equatorial waters because they overheat. No one has yet determined whether the newborn young have a sufficient layer of fat to protect them from the cold water, and it has been suggested that whales calve in temperate waters to prevent the babies from being chilled. However, there are species like the narwhal and the white whale which calve in Arctic waters. ”

“ The Southern Whale, which, in common with the closely allied polar species, whaling-crews call "right," seeing that all other kinds are, from their point of view, "wrong," is probably the only right-whale which has ever found its way to our shores. Some writers include the Greenland Right-whale, but their authority for this is doubtful. It is said to grow to a length of at any rate 70 feet, though 55 feet would perhaps be more common for even large specimens. In colour it is said to be dark above, with a varying amount of white or grey on the flippers and under-surface. ”

“ I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error. ”

“ In colour the whale is usually black or bluish-black above, and whitish or piebald below. Sometimes white spots occur on the upper parts, and the markings frequently vary with the individual. The young are lighter-coloured, being bluish. ”

“ 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; ”

“ Then there was great rejoicing among the villagers. The whale was hardly dead before they began to cut bits of the outer epidermis, the blackskin, from him and to bolt it raw, it being considered a great delicacy among “the people;” indeed, many white men find its nutty, oily flavor pleasant.
Then they towed the carcass alongside the ice, cut “jug handles” in the heavy floes, and [202] reeved their walrus-hide lines through these. With this primitive purchase they hauled the head up so that one side of the bone could be cut out. Then they rolled the whale and cut out the other side. ”

“ The squid reach a length of twenty feet or more and the whale sometimes has terrific battles with its huge prey, the tentacles of which, armed with deadly suckers, tear long gashes in the skin of the head and snout, leaving white scars crisscrossed in every direction. In Japan I took several enormous spiny lobsters from the stomach of a sperm whale, as well as the remains of a shark and seventy or eighty yellow parrot-like beaks of the cuttlefish. ”

“ Cetacean bones are easily affected by weather, and if exposed to the sun, rain and wind for a comparatively short time the hard exterior becomes white and chalk-like.
The whale’s skeleton is highly modified in adaptation to an aquatic existence and is very distinctive of the cetacean order. In a general view it is seen to be greatly elongated, the skull is pointed, the fore-limbs are short and flat and the hind-limbs are represented by nodules of bone; all these accompany a fish-like body which offers little resistance to its passage through the water. ”

“ The mouth was lined throughout with a pearly white membrane, which, when the whale lies below the surface with its lower jaw dropped down, attracts the unwary fish and other sea-creatures on which it feeds. When a number swim into the trap, it closes its jaw, and swallows the whole at a gulp.
“You see, Walter,” observed the mate, “the sperm whale differs very much in this respect from the Greenland whale, which has a remarkably small gullet, and a quantity of whalebone in its gills, through which it strains its food, so that nothing can get into its mouth which it cannot swallow. ”

“ “Hark ye yet again,—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. ”

“ Such noble, loyal qualities shown by these animals deepen our regret that through promiscuous slaughter, they are rapidly diminishing in numbers, and are likely to disappear from the Northern hemisphere. Sharks, narwhals, and white bears are enemies of the whale, but none of these brute hunters are as reckless and destructive in their warfare as men.
The sperm whale is more nearly allied to the porpoise than to the right whale. From the sperm whale, oil, ivory, ambergris, and spermaceti are obtained, but no whalebone. ”

“ Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the white curds of the whale’s direful wrath into the serene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal. ”

“ Now and again Whales are washed up on our coasts, and then we can see how huge is this strange monster of the deep. It is by far the largest of all living animals. Once on the land it is quite helpless; it cannot regain its home in the waters, and slowly dies. It is shaped like a fish, and its home is in the sea, so no wonder it has often been called a fish.
If by chance the Whale is held under water, it drowns. It has no gills, like those of the fish, to take air from the water; it is a mammal, a creature that must breathe the free air just as other mammals. Nature is full of surprises. ”

“ Certainly, when once a boat is smashed, it is rare for a whale to deliberately try to destroy the men in the water. The sperm whale tries to bite; the right whale—it is from him your whalebone comes—strikes with his vast flukes. He will lie quietly in the water and brush his flukes back and forth across the surface, feeling for his enemy. If his flukes touch a floating tub, an oar, a man, they coil up like an enormous spring, and slap down with a blow that crushes utterly whatever they may strike. The whalemen have a proverb: "'Ware the sperm whale's jaw, and the right whale's flukes." ”

“ His eyes, too, set obliquely, enable him to command the sea at all points save dead ahead, and it is accordingly from this point that the fishermen approach him. But however stealthily they move, the opportunities for disappointment are many. Big as he is, the whale is not sluggish. In an instant he may sink bodily from sight; or, throwing his flukes high in air, "sound," to be seen no more; or, casting himself bodily on the boat, blot it out of existence ”