Chapter LX: 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almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for,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 line-tub, 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
logger-head 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 quill, 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
whale-boat, 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, ever-present 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.