CHAPTER 53

  The Gam

  The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler

we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even

had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have

boarded her- judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions-

if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a

negative answer to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned

out, he cared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger

captain, except he could contribute some of that information he so

absorbingly sought. But all this might remain inadequately

estimated, were not something said here of the peculiar usages of

whaling-vessels when meeting each other in foreign seas, and

especially on a common cruising-ground.

  If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the

equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually

encountering each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for

the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and

stopping for a moment to interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting

down for a while and resting in concert: then, how much more natural

that upon the illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the

sea, two whaling vessels descrying each other at the ends of the

earth- off lone Fanning's Island, or the far away King's Mills; how

much more natural, I say, that under such circumstances these ships

should not only interchange hails, but come into still closer, more

friendly and sociable contact. And especially would this seem to be

a matter of course, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and

whose captains, officers, and not a few of the men are personally

known to each other; and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic

things to talk about.

  For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has

letters on board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some

papers of a date a year or two later than the last one on her

blurred and thumb-worn files. And in return for that courtesy, the

outward-bound ship would receive the latest whaling intelligence

from the cruising-ground to which she may be destined, a thing of

the utmost importance to her. And in degree, all this will hold true

concerning whaling vessels crossing each other's track on the

cruising-ground itself, even though they are equally long absent

from home. For one of them may have received a transfer of letters

from some third, and now far remote vessel; and some of those

letters may be for the people of the ship she now meets. Besides, they

would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable chat. For not

only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors, but

likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a common

pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils.

  Nor would difference of country make any very essential

difference; that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is

the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the

small number of English whalers, such meetings do not very often

occur, and when they do occur there. is too apt to be a sort of

shyness between them; for your Englishman is rather reserved, and your

Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing in anybody but himself.

Besides, the English whalers sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan

superiority over the American whalers; regarding the long, lean

Nantucketer, with his nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of

sea-peasant. But where this superiority in the English whaleman does

really consist, it would be hard to say, seeing that the Yankees in

one day, collectively, kill more whales than all the English,

collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless little foible in

the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does not take much to

heart; probably, because he knows that he has a few foibles himself.

  So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the

whalers have most reason to be sociable- and they are so. Whereas,

some merchant ships crossing each other's wake in the mid-Atlantic,

will oftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of

recognition, mutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a

brace of dandies in Broadway; and all the time indulging, perhaps,

in finical criticism upon each other's rig. As for Men-of-War, when

they chance to meet at sea, they first go through such a string of

silly bowings and scrapings, such a ducking of ensigns, that there

does not seem to be much right-down hearty good-will and brotherly

love about it at all. As touching Slave-ships meeting, why, they are

in such a prodigious hurry, they run away from each other as soon as

possible. And as for Pirates, when they chance to cross each other's

cross-bones, the first hail is- "How many skulls?"- the same way

that whalers hail- "How many barrels?" And that question once

answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for they are infernal

villains on both sides, and don't like to see overmuch of each other's

villanous likenesses.

  But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable,

free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another

whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a "Gam," a thing so

utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name

even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it,

and repeat gamesome stuff about "spouters" and "blubber-boilers,"

and such like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen,

and also all Pirates and Man-of-War's men, and Slave-ship sailors,

cherish such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a

question it would be hard to answer. Because, in the case of

pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profession of

theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in

uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows. And besides, when

a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for

his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself

to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that assertion the pirate has

no solid basis to stand on.

  But what is a Gam? You might wear out your index-finger running up

and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word, Dr.

Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster's ark does

not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for

many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true

born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be

incorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define

it.

  GAM. NOUN- A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships, generally

on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange

visits hy boats' crews, the two captains remaining, for the time, on

board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other.

  There is another little item about Gamming which must not be

forgotten here. All professions have their own little peculiarities of

detail; so has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave

ship, when the captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits

in the stern sheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat

there, and often steers himself with a pretty little milliner's tiller

decorated with gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has no seat

astern, no sofa of that sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High

times indeed, if whaling captains were wheeled about the water on

castors like gouty old aldermen in patent chairs. And as for a tiller,

the whale-boat never admits of any such effeminacy; and therefore as

in gamming a complete boat's crew must leave the ship, and hence as

the boat steerer or harpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is

the steersman upon the occasion, and the captain, having no place to

sit in, is pulled off to his visit all standing like a pine tree.

And often you will notice that being conscious of the eyes of the

whole visible world resting on him from the sides of the two ships,

this standing captain is all alive to the importance of sustaining his

dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is this any very easy matter; for

in his rear is the immense projecting steering oar hitting him now and

then in the small of his back, the after-oar reciprocating by

rapping his knees in front. He is thus completely wedged before and

behind, and can only expand himself sideways by settling down on his

stretched legs; but a sudden, violent pitch of the boat will often

go far to topple him, because length of foundation is nothing

without corresponding breadth. Merely make a spread angle of two

poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, it would never do in

plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would never do, I say, for

this straddling captain to be seen steadying himself the slightest

particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as token

of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in

his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy

hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have

occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has

been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden

squall say- to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on

there like grim death.