- end_line
- 15716
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-23T15:41:04.767Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 15650
- text
- CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.
“In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this
Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry.” _Sir T. Browne,
V.E._
It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when
we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day sea, that the
many noses on the Pequod’s deck proved more vigilant discoverers than
the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell
was smelt in the sea.
“I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts are
some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they
would keel up before long.”
Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the distance
lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must
be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours
from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that
circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the
whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that
is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an
unappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor
such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague,
when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable
indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to
moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it;
notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of
a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of
attar-of-rose.
Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman
had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of
a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of those
problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of
prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies
almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the
proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up
his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted
whales in general.
The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he
recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were
knotted round the tail of one of these whales.
“There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in the
ship’s bows, “there’s a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes
of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering
their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes,
and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of
tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they
will get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s wick into; aye, we all
know these things; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with
our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too
with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there.
Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s make him a
present of a little oil for dear charity’s sake. For what oil he’ll get
from that drugged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn in a jail; no,
not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to
get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours,
than he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of
it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes,
ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It’s worth
trying. Yes, I’m for it;” and so saying he started for the
quarter-deck.
- title
- Chunk 0