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- But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one
cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this
positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions.
But though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than
13,000, have been annually slain on the nor’ west coast by the
Americans alone; yet there are considerations which render even this
circumstance of little or no account as an opposing argument in this
matter.
Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness
of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to
Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the
King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are
numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems
no reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted
for thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all
the successive monarchs of the East—if they still survive there in
great numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since
he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as
all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the
Isles of the sea combined.
Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity of
whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more,
therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations
must be contemporary. And what that is, we may soon gain some idea of,
by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of
creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and
children who were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this
countless host to the present human population of the globe.
Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his
species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas
before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the
Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah’s flood he
despised Noah’s Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like
the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will
still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial
flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies.
CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg.
The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel
Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to
his own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his
boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock. And when
after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so
vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it
was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough);
then, the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist and
wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to all appearances
lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy.
And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his
pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to the
condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it had not
been very long prior to the Pequod’s sailing from Nantucket, that he
had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible;
by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his
ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise
smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme
difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured.
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