and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented
spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed
Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated
thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living
light, to be sure, but without an object to color,
and therefore a blankness in itself. God help
thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature
in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes
him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart
for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.
The Affidavit
So far as what there may be of a narrative in this
book; and, indeed, as indirectly touching one or two
very interesting and curious particulars in the habits
of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier
part, is as important a one as will be found in this
volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be
still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in
order to be adequately understood, and moreover to
take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance
of the entire subject may induce in some minds, as
to the natural verity of the main points of this affair.
I care not to perform this part of my task methodically;
but shall be content to produce the desired impression
by separate citations of items, practically or reliably
known to me as a whaleman; and from these citations,
I take it— the conclusion aimed at will
naturally follow of itself.
First: I have personally known three instances
where a whale, after receiving a harpoon, has effected
a complete escape; and, after an interval (in one
instance of three years), has been again struck by
the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both
marked by the same private cypher, have been taken
from the body. In the instance where three years
intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons;
and I think it may have been something more than that;
the man who darted them happening, in the interval,
to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa, went
ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated
far into the interior, where he travelled for a period
of nearly two years, often endangered by serpents,
savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the other
common perils incident to wandering in the heart of
unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had
struck must also have been on its travels; no doubt
it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with
its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose.
This man and this whale again came together, and
the one vanquished the other. I say I, myself,
have known three instances similar to this; that is
in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the
second attack, saw the two irons with the respective
marks cut in them, afterwards taken from the dead
fish. In the three-year instance, it so fell
out that I was in the boat both times, first and last,
and the last time distinctly recognized a peculiar
sort of huge mole under the whale’s eye, which
I had observed there three years previous. I
say three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than
that. Here are three instances, then, which I
personally know the truth of; but I have heard of
many other instances from persons whose veracity in
the matter there is no good ground to impeach.
