- end_line
- 15098
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-23T15:41:04.763Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 15043
- text
- wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to
the shouting part of the business. “Out of the way, Commodore!” cried
one, to a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface,
and for an instant threatened to swamp us. “Hard down with your tail,
there!” cried a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed
calmly cooling himself with his own fan-like extremity.
All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented
by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood of
equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each
other’s grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then
attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line
being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is
chiefly among gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more
whales are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But
sperm whales are not every day encountered; while you may, then, you
must kill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you
must wing them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure.
Hence it is, that at times like these the drugg, comes into
requisition. Our boat was furnished with three of them. The first and
second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly
running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the towing
drugg. They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball. But
upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy
wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an
instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the
boat’s bottom as the seat slid from under him. On both sides the sea
came in at the wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and
shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for the time.
It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were it
not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale’s way greatly
diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from
the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So
that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale
sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting
momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the
shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene
valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost
whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea
presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by
the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods.
Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the
heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted distance we
beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw successive
pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round,
like multiplied spans of horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to
shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have over-arched the
middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs. Owing to the
density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding
the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at
present afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that
hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us
up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by
small tame cows and calves; the women and children of this routed host.
- title
- Chunk 36