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.. < chapter lxxxvii 6  THE GRAND ARMADA >

     The long and narrow peninsula of
Malacca, extending south-eastward from the territories of Birmah, forms the
most southerly point of all Asia.  In a continuous line from that peninsula
stretch the long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many
others, form a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with
Australia, and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly
studded oriental archipelagoes.  This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports
for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are the
straits of Sunda and Malacca.  By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels
bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas.  Those narrow straits
of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing midway in that vast rampart
of islands, buttressed by that bold green promontory, known to seamen as
Java Head; they not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into
some vast walled empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices,
and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of
that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature,
that such treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear
the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping
western world.  The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those
domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the
Baltic, and the Propontis.  Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not demand the
obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from the endless procession of ships
.. <p 378 >
before the wind, which for centuries past, by night and by day, have passed
between the islands of Sumatra and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes
of the east.  But while they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by
no means renounce their claim to more solid tribute.  Time out of mind the
piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the low shaded coves and islets
of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the vessels sailing through the straits,
fiercely demanding tribute at the point of their spears.  Though by the
repeated bloody chastisements they have received at the hands of European
cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed;

     yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and American
vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.

     With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these straits;
Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and thence, cruising
northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and there by the Sperm
whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and gain the far coast of
Japan, in time for the great whaling season there.  By these means, the
circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the known Sperm Whale cruising
grounds of the world, previous to descending upon the Line in the Pacific;
where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon
giving battle to Moby Dick, in the sea he was most known to frequent; and at
a season when he might most reasonably be presumed to be haunting it.  But how
now?  in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land?  does his crew drink air?
Surely, he will stop for water.  Nay.  For a long time, now, the circus-running
sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what's in
himself.  So Ahab.  Mark this, too, in the whaler.  While other hulls are
loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves; the
world-wandering whale-ship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their
weapons and their wants.  She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample
hold.  She is ballasted with utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead
and kentledge.  She carries years' water in her.  Clear old prime Nantucket
water; which, when three years afloat, the Nantucketer,
.. <p 379 >
in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday
rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams.  Hence it is, that,
while other ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again,
touching at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not
have sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating
seamen like themselves.  So that did you carry them the news that another
flood had come; they would only answer -- Well, boys, here's the ark!  Now,
as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of Java, in the
near vicinity of the straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of the ground,
roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an excellent spot for
cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more and more upon Java Head, the
look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep wide awake.  But
though the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboard bow,
and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet
not a single jet was descried.  Almost renouncing all thought of falling in
with any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when
the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of
singular magnificence saluted us.  But here be it premised, that owing to the
unwearied activity with which of late they have been hunted over all four
oceans, the Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small
detached companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in
extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would
almost seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and
covenant for mutual assistance and protection.  To this aggregation of the
Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that
even in the best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and
months together, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be
suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands.  Broad on
both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great
semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of
whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air.  Unlike the
straight perpendicular
.. <p 380 >
twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, falls over in two
branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single
forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of
white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.  Seen from the
Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host
of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a
blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys
of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some
horseman on a height.  As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in
the mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous
passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the
plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward
through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle,
and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.  Crowding all sail
the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers handling their weapons, and
loudly cheering from the heads of their yet suspended boats.  If the wind only
held, little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits of Sunda,
the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture
of not a few of their number.  And who could tell whether, in that congregated
caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the
worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese!  So
with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these
leviathans before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard,
loudly directing attention to something in our wake.  Corresponding to the
crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear.  It seemed formed of
detached white vapors, rising and falling something like the spouts of the
whales; only they did not so completely come and go; for they constantly
hovered, without finally disappearing.  Levelling his glass at this sight,
ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole, crying, aloft there, and rig whips
and buckets to wet the sails; --Malays, sir, and after us!
.. <p 381 >
As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should fairly
have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot pursuit, to
make up for their over-cautious delay.  But when the swift Pequod, with a fresh
leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how very kind of these tawny
philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to her own chosen pursuit, --
mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they were.  As with glass under arm,
Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his forward turn beholding the monsters he
chased, and in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some
such fancy as the above seemed his.  And when he glanced upon the green walls
of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him
that through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that
through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly
end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman
atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their curses; --when
all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's brow was left gaunt
and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stormy tide has been gnawing
it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its place.  But thoughts
like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and when, after steadily
dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the Pequod at last shot by the
vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra side, emerging at last upon the
broad waters beyond; then, the harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the
swift whales had been gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship
had so victoriously gained upon the Malays.  But still driving on in the wake
of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the ship
neared them; and the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the
boats.  But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of
the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them,
--though as yet a mile in their rear, --than they rallied again, and forming in
close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like flashing
lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity.  Stripped to our
shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash,
.. <p 382 >
and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase,
when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating token that
they were now at last under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert
irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he
is gallied.  The compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto
rapidly and steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout;
and like King Porus' elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander, they
seemed going mad with consternation.  In all directions expanding in vast
irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short
thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic.  This
was still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely
paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on
the sea.  Had these leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over
the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced such
excessive dismay.  But this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost
all herding creatures.  Though banding together in tens of thousands, the
lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before a solitary horseman.
Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of
a theatre's pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush
helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and
remorselessly dashing each other to death.  Best, therefore, withhold
.. <p 383 >
any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly
of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of
men.  Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,
yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor
retreated, but collectively remained in one place.  As is customary in those
cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one lone whale on
the outskirts of the shoal.  In about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon
was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray in our faces, and then
running away with us like light, steered straight for the heart of the herd.
Though such a movement on the part of the whale struck under such
circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and indeed is almost always more
or less anticipated; yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes
of the fishery.  For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into
the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a
delirious throb.  As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer

     power of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as
we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by
the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was like a
ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer through their
complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what moment it may be
locked in and crushed.  But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully;
now sheering off from this monster directly across our route in advance; now
edging away from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while
all the time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of
our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time
to make long ones.  Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted
duty was now altogether dispensed with.  They chiefly attended to the shouting
part of the business.  Out of the way, Commodore!  cried one, to a great
dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant
threatened to swamp us.  Hard down with your tail, there!  cried a second
.. <p 384 >
to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed calmly cooling himself with
his own fan-like extremity.  All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances,

     originally invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs.  Two thick
squares of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they
cross each other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is
then attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line
being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon.  It is chiefly
among gallied whales that this drugg is used.  For then, more whales are close
round you than you can possibly chase at one time.  But sperm whales are not
every day encountered; while you may, then, you must kill all you can.  And
if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing them, so that they can be
afterwards killed at your leisure.  Hence it is, that at times like these the
drugg comes into requisition.  Our boat was furnished with three of them.
The first and second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales
staggeringly running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the
towing drugg.  They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball.
But upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy
wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an
instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the boat's
bottom as the seat slid from under him.  On both sides the sea came in at the
wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so
stopped the leaks for the time.  It had been next to impossible to dart these
drugged-harpoons, were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's
way greatly diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further
from the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning.  So
that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways
vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we glided
between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if from some
mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake.  Here the storms in the
roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt.  In this
central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a
sleek, produced
.. <p 385 >
by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods.  Yes,
we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every
commotion.  And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the
outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in
each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a
ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might
easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have gone round on their
backs.  Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales, more
immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of
escape was at present afforded us.  We must watch for a breach in the living
wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut
us up.  Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by
small tame cows and calves; the women and children of this routed host.  Now,
inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving outer
circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in any one of
those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by the whole
multitude, must have contained at least two or three square miles.  At any
rate --though indeed such a test at such a time might be deceptive --spoutings
might be discovered from our low boat that seemed playing up almost from the
rim of the horizon.  I mention this circumstance, because, as if the cows and
calves had been purposely locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the
wide extent of the herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise
cause of its stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and
every way innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these
smaller whales --now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the
lake --evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still
becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at.  Like household dogs
they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and touching them;

     till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them.
Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs with his
lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time refrained from darting
it.
.. <p 386 >
But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still
stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side.  For, suspended in
those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the whales,
and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers.  The
lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent;
and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the
breast, as if leading two different lives at the time; and while yet drawing
mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly
reminiscence; --even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards
us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulf-weed in their new-born
sight.  floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us.
One of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a
day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet
in girth.  He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet
recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the
maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring,
the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow.  The delicate side-fins, and
the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the plaited crumpled
appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from foreign parts.  Line!  line!
cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; him fast!  him fast! --Who line
him!  Who struck?  Two whale; one big, one little!  What ails ye, man?
cried Starbuck.  Look-e here, said Queequeg pointing down.  As when the
stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of fathoms of rope;
as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows the slackened curling
line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw
long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub
seemed still tethered to its dam.  Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the
chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled
with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped.  Some of the
subtlest secrets of the seas
.. <p 387 >
seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond.  We saw young Leviathan amours
in the deep.  And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of
consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre
freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely
revelled in dalliance and delight.  But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic
of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and
while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep
inland there i still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.  Meanwhile, as we
thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic spectacles in the distance
evinced the activity of the other boats, still engaged in drugging the whales
on the frontier of the host; or possibly carrying on the war within the first

     circle, where abundance of room and some convenient retreats were afforded
them.  But the sight of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly
darting to and fro across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our
eyes.  It is sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly
powerful and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or
maiming his gigantic tail-tendon.  It is done by darting a short-handled
cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again.  A
whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not effectually,
as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along with him half of
the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of the wound, he was now
dashing among the revolving circles like the lone mounted desperado
.. <p 388 >
Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay wherever he went.  But
agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling spectacle enough,
any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed to inspire the rest of
the herd, was owing to a cause which at first the intervening distance
obscured from us.  But at length we perceived that by one of the unimaginable
accidents of the fishery, this whale had become entangled in the harpoon-line
that he towed; he had also run away with the cutting-spade in him; and while
the free end of the rope attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in
the coils of the harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had
worked loose from his flesh.  So that tormented to madness, he was now
churning through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and
tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own comrades.
this terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their stationary
fright.  First, the whales forming the margin of our lake began to crowd a
little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted by half spent billows
from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to heave and swell; the
submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished; in more and more
contracting orbits the whales in the more central circles began to swim in
thickening clusters.  Yes, the long calm was departing.  A low advancing hum
was soon heard; and then like to the tumultuous masses of block-ice when the
great river Hudson breaks up in Spring, the entire host of whales came
tumbling upon their inner centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common
mountain.  Instantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking
the stern.  Oars!  Oars!  he intensely whispered, seizing the helm -- gripe
your oars, and clutch your souls, now!  My God, men, stand by!  Shove him off,
you Queequeg --the whale there! --prick him! --hit him!  Stand up --stand up, and
stay so!  Spring, men -- pull, men; never mind their backs --scrape them!
--scrape away!  The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks,
leaving a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths.  But by desperate
endeavor we at last shot into a temporary
.. <p 389 >
opening; then giving way rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching
for another outlet.  After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last
swiftly glided into what had just been one of the outer circles, but now
crossed by random whales, all violently making for one centre.  This lucky
salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while
standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean
from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad
flukes close by.  Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was,
it soon resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having
clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their onward
flight with augmented fleetness.  Further pursuit was useless; but the boats
still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales might be dropped
astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waifed.  The
waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried by every boat;
and which, when additional game is at hand, are inserted upright into the
floating body of a dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea, and also
as token of prior possession, should the boats of any other ship draw near.
The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious saying
in the Fishery, --the more whales the less fish.  Of all the drugged whales
only one was captured.  The rest contrived to escape for the time, but only
to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some other craft than the Pequod.

.. <p 382n. >
To gally, or gallow, is to frighten excessively --to confound with fright.
It is an old Saxon word.  It occurs once in Shakespeare: -- The wrathful skies

     Gallow the very wanderers of the dark And make them keep their caves.  To
common language, the word is now completely obsolete.  When the polite
landsman first hears it from the gaunt Nantucketer, he is apt to set it
down as one of the whaleman's self-derived savageries.  Much the same is it
with many other sinewy Saxonisms of this sort, which emigrated to
New-England rocks with the noble brawn of the old English emigrants in the
time of the Commonwealth.  Thus, some of the best and furthest-descended
English words --the etymological Howards and Percys --are now democratised, nay,
plebeianised --so to speak --in the New World.
.. <p 387n. >
The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike
most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestation
which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a time;
though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and Jacob: -- a
contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously situated, one
on each side of the anus; but the breasts themselves extend upwards from
that.  When by chance these precious parts in a nursing whale are cut by the
hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolor
the sea for rods.  The milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by
man; it might do well with strawberries.  When overflowing with mutual
esteem, the whales salute more hominum.
.. <p 389 >