Chapter XCVII: 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 try-works, 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.