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- 12616
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- 2026-01-30T20:49:30.771Z
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- 12572
- text
- CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope.
In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale,
there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands
are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no
staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has
to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the
description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was
mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale’s back, the
blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the
spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that
same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my
particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to
descend upon the monster’s back for the special purpose referred to.
But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall
remain on the whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is
concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged,
excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten
feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about,
half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like
a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured
in the Highland costume—a shirt and socks—in which to my eyes, at
least, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better
chance to observe him, as will presently be seen.
Being the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar
in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to
attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead
whale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by
a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg
down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a
monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his
waist.
It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we
proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both
ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow
leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time,
were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both
usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should
drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature
united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I
any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond
entailed.
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