Moby Dick

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a movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale.
Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a
little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the
stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for
umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which
to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical
conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this
crow's-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him
(also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for
the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns
infesting those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from
the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down upon
them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love
for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the little detailed
conveniences of his crow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many
of these, and though he treats us to a very scientific account of his
experiments in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for