I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, tomake mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important,as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonablenessof the whole story of the White Whale, more especially thecatastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances wheretruth requires full as much bolstering as error. So ignorant aremost landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of theworld, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historicaland otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as amonstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous andintolerable allegory.
First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the generalperils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vividconception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur.
One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disastersand deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record athome, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Doyou suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhapscaught by the whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carrieddown to the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan- do yousuppose that that poor fellow's name will appear in the newspaperobituary you will read to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because themails are very irregular between here and New Guinea. In fact, did youever hear what might be called regular news direct or indirect fromNew Guinea? Yet I will tell you that upon one particular voyagewhich I made to the Pacific, among many others we spoke thirtydifferent ships, every one of which had had a death by a whale, someof them more than one, and three that had each lost a boat's crew. ForGod's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallonyou burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.
Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that awhale is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever foundthat when narrating to them some specific example of this two-foldenormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon myfacetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea ofbeing facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the plaguesof Egypt.
But fortunately the special point I here seek can be establishedupon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: TheSperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, andjudiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in,utterly destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more, the SpermWhale has done it.
First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, ofNantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she sawspouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of spermwhales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when,suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued fromthe shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing hisforehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than"ten minutes" she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank ofher has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of the crewreached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last,Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of anothership, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks andbreakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwithforswearing the sea, he has never attempted it since. At this dayCaptain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace,who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I haveread his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with hisson; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.**The following are extracts from Chace's narrative: "Every factseemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chancewhich directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon theship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according totheir direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by beingmade ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for theshock; to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made werenecessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicatedresentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had justbefore entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, asif fired with revenge for their sufferings." Again: "At all events,the whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my owneyes, and producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided,calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of whichimpressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that Iam correct in my opinion."
Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during ablack night an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching anyhospitable shore. "The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing;the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashedupon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearfulcontemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; thedismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of thewhale, wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made itsappearance."
In another place- p.45,- he speaks of "the mysterious and mortalattack of the animal."
Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authenticparticulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter,though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casualallusions to it.
