CHAPTER 58

  Brit

  Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast

meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right

Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues undulated round us, so

that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and

golden wheat.

  On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure

from the attack of a Sperm-Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws

sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing

fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that

manner separated from the water that escaped at the lips.

  As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance

their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so

these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and

leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.*

  *That part of the sea known among whalemen as the "Brazil Banks"

does not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of

there being shallows and soundings there, but because of this

remarkable meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit

continually floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is

often chased.

  But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at

all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially

when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black

forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And

as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance

will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without

knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of

the soil; even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds

this species of the leviathans of the sea. And even when recognized at

last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe

that such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in

all parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.

  Indeed. in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of

the deep with the same feeling that you do those of the shore. For

though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of

the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad

general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to

specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish

that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog?

The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear

comparative analogy to him.

  But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the

seas have ever regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and

repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra

incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to

discover his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the

most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and

indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those

who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration

will teach that, however baby man may brag of his science and skill,

and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may

augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will

insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest

frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of

these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full

awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.

  The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese

vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a

widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the

wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is

not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

  Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is

not a miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the

Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and his company the live

ground opened and swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun

ever sets, but in precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up

ships and crews.

  But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but

it is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian

host who murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which

itself hath spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the

jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest

whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with

the split wrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it.

Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its

rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.

  Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures

glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously

hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the

devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes,

as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider

once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures

prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

  Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most

docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not

find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling

ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one

insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the

horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from

that isle, thou canst never return!