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- whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale
belong to some one else. I know some o’ you has berry brig mout,
brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small
bellies; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to
bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can’t get into de
scrouge to help demselves.”
“Well done, old Fleece!” cried Stubb, “that’s Christianity; go on.”
“No use goin’ on; de dam willains will keep a scougin’ and slappin’
each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don’t hear one word; no use a-preachin’ to
such dam g’uttons as you call ’em, till dare bellies is full, and dare
bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get ’em full, dey wont hear you
den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and
can’t hear not’ing at all, no more, for eber and eber.”
“Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction,
Fleece, and I’ll away to my supper.”
Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his
shrill voice, and cried—
“Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill
your dam’ bellies ’till dey bust—and den die.”
“Now, cook,” said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; “stand
just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular
attention.”
“All dention,” said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the
desired position.
“Well,” said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; “I shall now go
back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you,
cook?”
“What dat do wid de ’teak,” said the old black, testily.
“Silence! How old are you, cook?”
“’Bout ninety, dey say,” he gloomily muttered.
“And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook,
and don’t know yet how to cook a whale-steak?” rapidly bolting another
mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the
question. “Where were you born, cook?”
“’Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin’ ober de Roanoke.”
“Born in a ferry-boat! That’s queer, too. But I want to know what
country you were born in, cook!”
“Didn’t I say de Roanoke country?” he cried sharply.
“No, you didn’t, cook; but I’ll tell you what I’m coming to, cook. You
must go home and be born over again; you don’t know how to cook a
whale-steak yet.”
“Bress my soul, if I cook noder one,” he growled, angrily, turning
round to depart.
“Come back, cook;—here, hand me those tongs;—now take that bit of steak
there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? Take
it, I say”—holding the tongs towards him—“take it, and taste it.”
Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro
muttered, “Best cooked ’teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy.”
“Cook,” said Stubb, squaring himself once more; “do you belong to the
church?”
“Passed one once in Cape-Down,” said the old man sullenly.
“And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town,
where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as
his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here,
and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?” said Stubb.
“Where do you expect to go to, cook?”
“Go to bed berry soon,” he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.
“Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It’s an awful question.
Now what’s your answer?”
“When dis old brack man dies,” said the negro slowly, changing his
whole air and demeanor, “he hisself won’t go nowhere; but some bressed
angel will come and fetch him.”
“Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch
him where?”
“Up dere,” said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and
keeping it there very solemnly.
“So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when
you are dead? But don’t you know the higher you climb, the colder it
gets? Main-top, eh?”
“Didn’t say dat t’all,” said Fleece, again in the sulks.
“You said up there, didn’t you? and now look yourself, and see where
your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by
crawling through the lubber’s hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don’t
get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It’s a
ticklish business, but must be done, or else it’s no go. But none of us
are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye
hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t’other a’top of your heart,
when I’m giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?—that’s
your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!—that’s it—now you have it. Hold it there
now, and pay attention.”
“All ’dention,” said the old black, with both hands placed as desired,
vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at
one and the same time.
“Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad,
that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that,
don’t you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for
my private table here, the capstan, I’ll tell you what to do so as not
to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live
coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d’ye hear? And now
to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by
to get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends
of the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go.”
But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.
“Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch.
D’ye hear? away you sail, then.—Halloa! stop! make a bow before you
go.—Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast—don’t forget.”
“Wish, by gor! whale eat him, ’stead of him eat whale. I’m bressed if
he ain’t more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,” muttered the old man,
limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.
CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish.
That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and,
like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so
outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and
philosophy of it.
It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right
Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large
prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth’s time, a certain cook of the
court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be
eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of
whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The
meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being
well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls.
The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great
porpoise grant from the crown.
The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all
hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but
when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet
long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men
like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are
not so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare
old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous
doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly
juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who
long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel—that
these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of
whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber.