Chapter 47.00: CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.

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CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.
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So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as
indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars in
the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier part, is
as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the leading matter
of it requires to be still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in
order to be adequately understood, and moreover to take away any
incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in
some minds, as to the natural verity of the main points of this affair.

I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall be
content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of items,
practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from these
citations, I take it—the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow
of itself.

First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after
receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an
interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the
same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same private
cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where three years
intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I think it may
have been something more than that; the man who darted them happening, in
the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa, went ashore
there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far into the interior,
where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, often endangered by
serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the other common
perils incident to wandering in the heart of unknown regions. Meanwhile,
the whale he had struck must also have been on its travels; no doubt it
had thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with its flanks all the
coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. This man and this whale again came
together, and the one vanquished the other. I say I, myself, have known
three instances similar to this; that is in two of them I saw the whales
struck; and, upon the second attack, saw the two irons with the respective
marks cut in them, afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year
instance, it so fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and
last, and the last time distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole
under the whale’s eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I
say three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are
three instances, then, which I personally know the truth of; but I have
heard of many other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter
there is no good ground to impeach.

Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant
the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable
historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at
distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became
thus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily
peculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar in
that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his
peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly
valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences of
the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about such a
whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen
were content to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he
would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to
cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils ashore that
happen to know an irascible great man, they make distant unobtrusive
salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the acquaintance
further, they might receive a summary thump for their presumption.

But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual
celebrity—Nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown; not only was he
famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death, but
he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of a
name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Cæsar. Was it not so, O
Timor Tom! Thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long
did’st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen
from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! Thou
terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of the
Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty jet they
say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross against the sky?
Was it not so, O Don Miguel! Thou Chilian whale, marked like an old
tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain prose, here are
four whales as well known to the students of Cetacean History as Marius or
Sylla to the classic scholar.

But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various
times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were
finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed by
valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with that express
object as much in view, as in setting out through the Narragansett Woods,
Captain Butler of old had it in his mind to capture that notorious
murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip.

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. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest
and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching
the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might
scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more
detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.

First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general
perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid
conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur. One
reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters and
deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home,
however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you suppose
that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the
whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the
bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan—do you suppose that that
poor fellow’s name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read
to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular
between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be
called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell you
that upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many
others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had had a death
by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each lost a
boat’s crew. For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles!
Not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled
for it.

Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale is
an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that when
narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold enormousness,
they have significantly complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I
declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses,
when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt.

But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon
testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm
Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously
malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, and
sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale has done it.

First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, was
cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her boats,
and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales
were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats,
issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing his
forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than “ten
minutes” she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank of her has
been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of the crew reached the
land in their boats. Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once
more sailed for the Pacific in command of another ship, but the gods
shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time
his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never
tempted it since. At this day Captain 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 have read his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed
with his son; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the
catastrophe. *

*The following are extracts from Chace’s narrative: “Every fact seemed to
warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which directed
his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at a short
interval between them, both of which, according to their direction, were
calculated to do us the most injury, by being made ahead, and thereby
combining the speed of the two objects for the shock; to effect which, the
exact manœuvres which he made were necessary. His aspect was most
horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He came directly from
the shoal which we had just before entered, and in which we had struck
three of his companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings.”
Again: “At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, all
happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time, impressions in
my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many
of which impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that
I am correct in my opinion.”

Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a black
night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any hospitable
shore. “The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the fears of
being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon hidden rocks,
with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful contemplation, seemed
scarcely entitled to a moment’s thought; the dismal looking wreck, and _the
horrid aspect and revenge of the whale_, wholly engrossed my reflections,
until day again made its appearance.”

In another place—p. 45,—he speaks of “_the mysterious and
mortal attack of the animal_.”

Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 totally
lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic particulars of
this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, though from the whale
hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions to it.

Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J——, then
commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be
dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in the
harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, the
Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength
ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily
denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war
as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there is
more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sail in this impregnable
craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm
whale, that begged a few moments’ confidential business with him. That
business consisted in fetching the Commodore’s craft such a thwack, that
with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave
down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore’s
interview with that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus
converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale
will stand no nonsense.

I will now refer you to Langsdorff’s Voyages for a little circumstance in
point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you must
know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern’s famous
Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. Captain
Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter:

“By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day we
were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was very
clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on
our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was not till
the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An uncommon
large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost
at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by any one on board
till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon
him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We
were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic creature,
setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the water.
The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were below
all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon
some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost
gravity and solemnity. Captain D’Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to
examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock,
but we found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured.”

Now, the Captain D’Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in
question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual adventures
as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of Dorchester near
Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I have particularly
questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates
every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large one: a Russian
craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my uncle after
bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.

In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too,
of honest wonders—the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient
Dampier’s old chums—I found a little matter set down so like that
just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a
corroborative example, if such be needed.

Lionel, it seems, was on his way to “John Ferdinando,” as he calls the
modern Juan Fernandes. “In our way thither,” he says, “about four o’clock
in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues from the
Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our men in such
consternation that they could hardly tell where they were or what to
think; but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock
was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the ship had struck
against a rock; but when the amazement was a little over, we cast the
lead, and sounded, but found no ground. * * * * * The suddenness of the shock
made the guns leap in their carriages, and several of the men were shaken
out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was
thrown out of his cabin!” Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an
earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a
great earthquake, somewhere about that time, did actually do great
mischief along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder if, in the
darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was after all caused
by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath.

I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to
me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more
than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing
boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long
withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship
Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, let me
say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a running
sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and secured
there; the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a horse walks
off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm
whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often
with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of destruction to his
pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent indication of his
character, that upon being attacked he will frequently open his mouth, and
retain it in that dread expansion for several consecutive minutes. But I
must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration; a
remarkable and most significant one, by which you will not fail to see,
that not only is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by
plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels)
are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time we say
amen with Solomon—Verily there is nothing new under the sun.

In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate of
Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius
general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work every
way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been
considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in some
one or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently to be
mentioned.

Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term of
his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured in the
neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed vessels
at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty years. A fact
thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is
there any reason it should be. Of what precise species this sea-monster
was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other
reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly inclined to think a
sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long time I fancied that the
sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep
waters connecting with it. Even now I am certain that those seas are not,
and perhaps never can be, in the present constitution of things, a place
for his habitual gregarious resort. But further investigations have
recently proved to me, that in modern times there have been isolated
instances of the presence of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am
told, on good authority, that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of
the British navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of
war readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by
the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis.

In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar substance
called brit is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. But I have
every reason to believe that the food of the sperm whale—squid or
cuttle-fish—lurks at the bottom of that sea, because large
creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at
its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and
reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all
human reasoning, Procopius’s sea-monster, that for half a century stove
the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm
whale.