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_ Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us
join them, and lay together our own.
Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right
Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales
regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two
extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external
difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a
head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod's side; and as we
may freely go from one to the other, by merely stepping across the
deck:--where, I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance
to study practical cetology than here?
In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between
these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there
is a certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale's which the
Right Whale's sadly lacks. There is more character in the Sperm
Whale's head. As you behold it, you involuntarily yield the immense
superiority to him, in point of pervading dignity. In the present
instance, too, this dignity is heightened by the pepper and salt
colour of his head at the summit, giving token of advanced age and
large experience. In short, he is what the fishermen technically
call a "grey-headed whale."
Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads--namely, the
two most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side
of the head, and low down, near the angle of either whale's jaw, if
you narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you
would fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all proportion is it
to the magnitude of the head.
Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes, it is
plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more
than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the
whale's eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears; and you may fancy,
for yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey
objects through your ears. You would find that you could only
command some thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight
side-line of sight; and about thirty more behind it. If your
bitterest foe were walking straight towards you, with dagger uplifted
in broad day, you would not be able to see him, any more than if he
were stealing upon you from behind. In a word, you would have two
backs, so to speak; but, at the same time, also, two fronts (side
fronts): for what is it that makes the front of a man--what, indeed,
but his eyes?
Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the
eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so
as to produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar
position of the whale's eyes, effectually divided as they are by many
cubic feet of solid head, which towers between them like a great
mountain separating two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must
wholly separate the impressions which each independent organ imparts.
The whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture on this side,
and another distinct picture on that side; while all between must be
profound darkness and nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be
said to look out on the world from a sentry-box with two joined
sashes for his window. But with the whale, these two sashes are
separately inserted, making two distinct windows, but sadly impairing
the view. This peculiarity of the whale's eyes is a thing always to
be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be remembered by the reader
in some subsequent scenes.
A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this
visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with
a hint. So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of
seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically
seeing whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one's
experience will teach him, that though he can take in an
undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite
impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examine any two
things--however large or however small--at one and the same instant
of time; never mind if they lie side by side and touch each other.
But if you now come to separate these two objects, and surround each
by a circle of profound darkness; then, in order to see one of them,
in such a manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will
be utterly excluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it,
then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must
simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehensive,
combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same moment of
time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of
him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he can, then
is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able
simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct
problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any
incongruity in this comparison.
It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the
extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when
beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer
frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly
proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their
divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve
them.
But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are
an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads
for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external
leaf whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a
quill, so wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the
eye. With respect to their ears, this important difference is to be
observed between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of
the former has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely
and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite
imperceptible from without.
Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the
world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear
which is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as the
lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the
porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or
sharper of hearing? Not at all.--Why then do you try to "enlarge"
your mind? Subtilize it.
Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand,
cant over the sperm whale's head, that it may lie bottom up;
then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the
mouth; and were it not that the body is now completely separated from
it, with a lantern we might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth
Cave of his stomach. But let us hold on here by this tooth, and look
about us where we are. What a really beautiful and chaste-looking
mouth! from floor to ceiling, lined, or rather papered with a
glistening white membrane, glossy as bridal satins.
But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems
like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at
one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it
overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific
portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the
fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force. But far
more terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down in the sea, you see
some sulky whale, floating there suspended, with his prodigious jaw,
some fifteen feet long, hanging straight down at right-angles with
his body, for all the world like a ship's jib-boom. This whale is
not dead; he is only dispirited; out of sorts, perhaps;
hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have
relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a
reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws
upon him.
In most cases this lower jaw--being easily unhinged by a practised
artist--is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of
extracting the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard
white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious
articles, including canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to
riding-whips.
With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were
an anchor; and when the proper time comes--some few days after the
other work--Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished
dentists, are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade,
Queequeg lances the gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts,
and a tackle being rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as
Michigan oxen drag stumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There
are generally forty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down,
but undecayed; nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is
afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists for building
houses. _
Read next: CHAPTER 75 The Right Whale's Head--Contrasted View.
Read previous: CHAPTER 73 Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk Over Him.
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