Chapter II: THE CARPET-BAG
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my
arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good
city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was on a
Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning
that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no
way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday. As
most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at
this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as
well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind
was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there
was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that
famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New
Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of
whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much
behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original --the Tyre of this
Carthage; --the place where the first dead American whale was
stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal
whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the
Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first
adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported
cobble-stones --so goes the story --to throw at the whales, in order
to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the
bowsprit? Now having a night, a day, and still another night
following before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined
port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep
meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal
night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With
anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few
pieces of silver, --So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as
I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and
comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the
south --wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the
night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too
particular. With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the
sign of The Crossed Harpoons --but it looked too expensive and jolly
there. Further on, from the bright red windows of the Sword-Fish Inn,
there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed
snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed
frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement, --rather
weary for me, when I struck my foot against the flinty projections,
because from hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a
most miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I,
pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear
the sounds of the tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I
at last; don't you hear? get away from before the door; your patched
boots are stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed
the streets that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the
cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns. Such dreary streets! Blocks of
blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle,
like a candle moving about in a tomb. At this hour of the night, of
the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but
deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding from a
low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open. It had a
careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public; so,
entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an ash-box in the
porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me,
are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But The Crossed
Harpoons, and The Sword-Fish? --this, then, must needs be the sign of
The Trap. However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice
within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door. It seemed the
great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black faces
turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of Doom
was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the
preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping
and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I,
backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of The Trap! Moving
on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, and
heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging
sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing
a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath -- The
Spouter-Inn: --Peter Coffin. Coffin? --Spouter? --Rather ominous in
that particular connexion, thought I. But it is a common name in
Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from
there. As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time,
looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself
looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some
burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort
of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap
lodgings, and the best of pea coffee. It was a queer sort of place
--a gable-ended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning
over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous
wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor
Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant
zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting
for bed. In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon, says
an old writer --of whose works I possess the only copy extant -- it
maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a
glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou
observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both
sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier. True enough,
thought I, as this passage occurred to my mind --old black-letter,
thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of
mine is the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the
crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's
too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the
copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years
ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone
for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he
might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth,
and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon.
Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken wrapper --(he had a
redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how
Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental
summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of
making my own summer with my own coals. But what thinks Lazarus? Can
he warm his blue hands by holding them up to the grand northern
lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here? Would he
not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator;
yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in order to keep out
this frost? Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the
curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that
an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives
himself, he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen
sighs, and being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks
the tepid tears of orphans. But no more of this blubbering now, we
are going a-whaling, and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us
scrape the ice from our frosted feet, and see what sort of a place
this Spouter may be.