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- .. < chapter lxxxviii 28 SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS >
-
- The previous chapter
- gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm Whales, and there was also
- then given the probable cause inducing those vast aggregations. Now, though
- such great bodies are at times encountered, yet,
- .. <p 390 >
- as must have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are
- occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each. Such
- bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts; those composed
- almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young vigorous
- males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated. In cavalier attendance
- upon the school of females, you invariably see a male of full grown magnitude,
- but not old; who, upon any alarm, evinces his gallantry by falling in the
- rear and covering the flight of his ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a
- luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly
- accompanied by all the solaces and endearments of the harem. The contrast
- between this Ottoman and his concubines is striking; because, while he is
- always of the largest leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full
- growth, are not more than one third of the bulk of an average-sized male.
- They are comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a
- dozen yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the
- whole they are hereditarily entitled to en bon point. It is very curious
- to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent ramblings. Like
- fashionables, they are for ever on the move in leisurely search of variety.
- You meet them on the Line in time for the full flower of the Equatorial
- feeding season, having just returned, perhaps, from spending the summer in
- the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all unpleasant weariness and
- warmth. By the time they have lounged up and down the promenade of the
- Equator awhile, they start for the Oriental waters in anticipation of the
- cool season there, and so evade the other excessive temperature of the year.
- When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange suspicious
- sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his interesting family.
- Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming that way, presume to
- draw confidentially close to one of the ladies, with what prodigious fury the
-
- Bashaw assails him, and chases him away! High times, indeed, if
- unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity
- of domestic bliss; though do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most
- notorious Lothario out
- .. <p 391 >
- of his bed; for, alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the ladies often
- cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the
- whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. They fence
- with their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving
- for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not a
- few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters, --furrowed heads,
- broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and dislocated
- mouths. but supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at
- the first rush of the harem's lord, then is it very diverting to watch that
- lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and revels there
- awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, like pious Solomon
- devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines. Granting other whales to
- be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give chase to one of these Grand
- Turks; for these Grand Turks are too lavish of their strength, and hence
- their unctuousness is small. As for the sons and the daughters they beget,
- why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves; at least, with
- only the maternal help. For like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that
- might be named, my Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for
- the bower; and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies
- all over the world; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as the
- ardor of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends
- her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk;
-
- then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens; our Ottoman
- enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears,
- disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about
- all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and warning
- each young Leviathan from his amorous errors. Now, as the harem of whales is
- called by the fishermen a school, so is the lord and master of that school
- technically known as the schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict
- character, however admirably satirical, that after going to school himself,
- he should then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly
- of it. His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally
- .. <p 392 >
- seem derived from the name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have
- surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale,
- must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a
- country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what
- was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils.
-
- The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale betakes
- himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm Whales. Almost
- universally, a lone whale --as a solitary Leviathan is called --proves an
- ancient one. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one
- near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of
- waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody
- secrets. The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously
- mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while those
- female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or
- forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious of all
- Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; excepting
- those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, and these will
- fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout. The Forty-barrel-bull
- schools are larger than the harem schools. Like a mob of young collegians,
- they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness, tumbling round the world at such
- a reckless, rollicking rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure them
- any more than he would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish
- this turbulence though, and when about three fourths grown, break up, and
- separately go about in quest of settlements, that is, harems. Another point
- of difference between the male and female schools is still more characteristic
- of the sexes. Say you strike a Forty-barrel-bull --poor devil! all his
- comrades quit him. But strike a member of the harem school, and her
- companions swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering
- so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey.
- .. <p 393 >
-