revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing
foam. I looked at the grand and glorious fellow,
but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had
gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly
from the water, Queequeg, now took an instant’s
glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters
were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes
more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out,
and with the other dragging a lifeless form.
The boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin
was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble
trump; the captain begged his pardon. From that
hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till
poor Queequeg took his last long dive.
Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did
not seem to think that he at all deserved a medal
from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He
only asked for water—fresh water—something
to wipe the brine off; that done, he put on dry clothes,
lighted his pipe, and leaning against the bulwarks,
and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying
to himself—“It’s a mutual, joint-stock
world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help
these Christians.”
Nantucket
Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning;
so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.
Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it.
See what a real corner of the world it occupies;
how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than
the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it—
a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without
a background. There is more sand there than you
would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting
paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that
they have to plant weeds there, they don’t grow
naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that
they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop
a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket
are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome;
that people there plant toadstools before their houses,
to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade
of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day’s
walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand shoes, something
like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up,
belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made
an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very
chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found
adhering as to the backs of sea turtles. But
these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no
Illinois.
Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how
this island was settled by the red-men. Thus
goes the legend. In olden times an eagle swooped
down upon the New England coast and carried off an
infant Indian in his talons. With loud lament
the parents saw their child borne out of sight over
the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the
same direction. Setting out in their canoes,
after a perilous passage they discovered the island,
and there they found an empty ivory casket,—
the poor little Indian’s skeleton.
