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- .. < chapter xcvii 9 THE LAMP >
-
- Had you descended from the Pequod's
- try-works to the Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping,
-
- for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in
- some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay in
- their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a score of
- lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes. In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is
- more scarce than the milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the
- dark, and stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the
-
- whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his
- berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest
- night the ship's black hull still houses an illumination. See with what
- entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of lamps --often but old bottles
- and vials, though --to the copper cooler at the try-works, and replenishes
- them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He burns, too, the purest of oil, in
- its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to
- solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass
- butter in April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its
- freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his
- own supper of game.
- .. <p 424 >
-
