- end_line
- 3796
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3724
- text
- CHAPTER XX.
IN A FOG HE IS SET TO WORK AS A BELL-TOLLER, AND BEHOLDS A HERD OF
OCEAN-ELEPHANTS
What is this that we sail through? What palpable obscure? What smoke
and reek, as if the whole steaming world were revolving on its axis, as
a spit?
It is a Newfoundland Fog; and we are yet crossing the Grand Banks,
wrapt in a mist, that no London in the Novemberest November ever
equaled. The chronometer pronounced it noon; but do you call this
midnight or midday? So dense is the fog, that though we have a fair
wind, we shorten sail for fear of accidents; and not only that, but
here am I, poor Wellingborough, mounted aloft on a sort of belfry, the
top of the _“Sampson-Post,”_ a lofty tower of timber, so called; and
tolling the ship’s bell, as if for a funeral.
This is intended to proclaim our approach, and warn all strangers from
our track.
Dreary sound! toll, toll, toll, through the dismal mist and fog.
The bell is green with verdigris, and damp with dew; and the little
cord attached to the clapper, by which I toll it, now and then slides
through my fingers, slippery with wet. Here I am, in my slouched black
hat, like the _“bull that could pull,”_ announcing the decease of the
lamented Cock-Robin.
A better device than the bell, however, was once pitched upon by an
ingenious sea-captain, of whom I have heard. He had a litter of young
porkers on board; and while sailing through the fog, he stationed men
at both ends of the pen with long poles, wherewith they incessantly
stirred up and irritated the porkers, who split the air with their
squeals; and no doubt saved the ship, as the geese saved the Capitol.
The most strange and unheard-of noises came out of the fog at times: a
vast sound of sighing and sobbing. What could it be? This would be
followed by a spout, and a gush, and a cascading commotion, as if some
fountain had suddenly jetted out of the ocean.
Seated on my Sampson-Post, I stared more and more, and suspended my
duty as a sexton. But presently some one cried out—_“There she blows!
whales! whales close alongside!”_
A whale! Think of it! whales close to _me,_ Wellingborough;— would my
own brother believe it? I dropt the clapper as if it were red-hot, and
rushed to the side; and there, dimly floating, lay four or five long,
black snaky-looking shapes, only a few inches out of the water.
Can these be whales? Monstrous whales, such as I had heard of? I
thought they would look like mountains on the sea; hills and valleys of
flesh! regular krakens, that made it high tide, and inundated
continents, when they descended to feed!
It was a bitter disappointment, from which I was long in recovering. I
lost all respect for whales; and began to be a little dubious about the
story of Jonah; for how could Jonah reside in such an insignificant
tenement; how could he have had elbow-room there? But perhaps, thought
I, the whale which according to Rabbinical traditions was a female one,
might have expanded to receive him like an anaconda, when it swallows
an elk and leaves the antlers sticking out of its mouth.
Nevertheless, from that day, whales greatly fell in my estimation.
But it is always thus. If you read of St. Peter’s, they say, and then
go and visit it, ten to one, you account it a dwarf compared to your
high-raised ideal. And, doubtless, Jonah himself must have been
disappointed when he looked up to the domed midriff surmounting the
whale’s belly, and surveyed the ribbed pillars around him. A pretty
large belly, to be sure, thought he, but not so big as it might have
been.
- title
- Chunk 1