Chapter LVIII: 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 it 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 lip. 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. 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 recognised 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 feelings 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 been 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
offspring; 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! 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.