CHAPTER 97

  The Lamp

  Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's

forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single

moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some

illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they

lay in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled

muteness; a score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes.

  In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of

queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in

darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he

seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an

Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest

night the ship's black hull still houses an illumination.

  See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of

lamps- often but old bottles and vials, though- to the copper cooler

at the tryworks, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a

vat. He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and,

therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or

astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in

April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its

freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie

hunts up his own supper of game.