Moby Dick

Back Forward Menu

its every pace, that, with watches in their hands, men time his rate as
doctors that of a baby's pulse; and lightly say of it, the up train or
the down train will reach such or such a spot, at such or such an hour;
even so, almost, there are occasions when these Nantucketers time that
other Leviathan of the deep, according to the observed humor of his
speed; and say to themselves, so many hours hence this whale will have
gone two hundred miles, will have about reached this or that degree of
latitude or longitude. But to render this acuteness at all successful in
the end, the wind and the sea must be the whaleman's allies; for of what
present avail to the becalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that
assures him he is exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his
port? Inferable from these statements, are many collateral subtile
matters touching the chase of whales.

The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a
cannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level
field.