Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/BOOKS/Novels/H.Melville/moby.60

Text File | 1994-05-27 | 8.1 KB | 124 lines

.. < chapter lx 26  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
.. <p 278 >
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American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for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
.. <p 279 >
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
.. <p 280 >
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
.. <p 281 >
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.
.. <p 281 >