CHAPTER 60

  The Line

  With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well

as for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere

presented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible

whale-line.

  The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp,

slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case

of ordinary ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp

more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself

more convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would

the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close

coiling to which it must be subjected; but as most seamen are

beginning to learn, tar in general by no means adds to the rope's

durability or strength, however much it may give it compactness and

gloss.

  Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost

entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though

not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic;

and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much

more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky,

dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired

Circassian to behold.

  The whale-line is only two thirds of an inch in thickness. At

first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By

experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one

hundred and twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain

nearly equal to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line

measures something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of

the boat it is spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe

of a still though, but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass

of densely bedded "sheaves," or layers of concentric spiralizations,

without any hollow but the "heart," or minute vertical tube formed

at the axis of the cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the

coiling would, in running out, infallibly take somebody's arm, leg, or

entire body off, the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line

in its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning

in this business, carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it

downwards through a block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling

to free it from all possible wrinkles and twists.

  In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line

being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in

this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily

into the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American

tub, nearly three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a

rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks are but one-half inch in

thickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice,

which will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but not very

much of a concentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped

on the American tubline, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with

a prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.

  Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an

eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the

tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from

everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two

accounts. First: In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an

additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale

should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line

originally attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale of

course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat

to the other; though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist

its consort. Second: This arrangement is indispensable for common

safety's sake; for were the lower end of the line in any way

attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to

the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does, he

would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be

dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea; and in that

case no town-crier would ever find her again.

  Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is

taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is

again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise

upon the loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs against

his wrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they

alternately sit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or

grooves in the extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or

skewer the size of a common squill, prevents it from slipping out.

From the chocks it hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is

then passed inside the boat again; and some ten or twenty fathoms

(called box-line) being coiled upon the box in the bows, it

continues its way to the gunwale still a little further aft, and is

then attached to the short-warp- the rope which is immediately

connected with the harpoon; but previous to that connexion, the

short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious to detail.

  Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils,

twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the

oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid

eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the

deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of

mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen

intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him

that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these

horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he

cannot be thus circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very

marrow in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit-

strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?- Gayer sallies, more

merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard

over your mahogany, than you will hear over the half-inch white

cedar of the whaleboat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses; and,

like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men

composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around

every neck, as you may say.

  Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for

those repeated whaling disasters- some few of which are casually

chronicled- of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the

line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then

in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold

whizzings of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam,

and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot

sit motionless in the heart of these perils, because the boat is

rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and the other,

without the slightest warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting

buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape

being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun

himself could never pierce you out.

  Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and

prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm

itself; for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the

storm; and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle

holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the

graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the

oarsmen before being brought into actual play- this is a thing which

carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous

affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All

are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in

the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent,

subtle, everpresent perils of life. And if you be a philosopher,

though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one

whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire

with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.