somewhere else to be described—­this peaking of the whale’s flukes is perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature.  Out of the bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the highest heaven.  So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell.  But in gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the archangels.  Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with peaked flukes.  As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers.  As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all beings.  For according to King Juba, the military elephants of antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the profoundest silence.

The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two opposite organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they respectively belong.  For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan’s tail, his trunk is but the stalk of a lily.  The most direful blow from the elephant’s trunk were as the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and crash of the sperm whale’s ponderous flukes, which in repeated instances have one after the other hurled entire boats with all their oars and crews into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.*

Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does to the elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of curious similitude; among these is the spout.  It is well known that the elephant will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then elevating it, jet it forth in a stream.

The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability to express it.  At times there are gestures in it, which, though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable.  In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these methods intelligently conversed with the world.  Nor are there wanting other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant.  Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep.  I know him not, and never will.  But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none?  Thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen.  But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will about his face, I say again he has no face.