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- peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment
of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of
the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African
elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most
devout of all beings. For according to King Juba, the military
elephants of antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks
uplifted in the profoundest silence.
The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the
elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk
of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two opposite
organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they
respectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to
Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan’s tail, his trunk is but the
stalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant’s trunk were
as the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and
crash of the sperm whale’s ponderous flukes, which in repeated
instances have one after the other hurled entire boats with all their
oars and crews into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his
balls.*
*Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale and
the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the
elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does
to the elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of
curious similitude; among these is the spout. It is well known that the
elephant will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then
elevating it, jet it forth in a stream.
The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my
inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which,
though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly
inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are
these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them
akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these
methods intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting
other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness,
and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I
may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will. But if I
know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much
more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my
back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen.
But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will
about his face, I say again he has no face.
CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.
The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward from
the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all Asia.
In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long islands of
Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others, form a vast
mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia, and
dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded
oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports
for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are
the straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda, chiefly,
vessels bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas.
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