Moby Dick

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"'Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha's very fine; and
ere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are; for such
information may throw side-light upon my story.'

"For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire
breadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and
most thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and
affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room
and bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman
arches over Indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or
broken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk
counties; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires
stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly
corrupt and often lawless life. There's your true Ashantee, gentlemen;
there howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you;
under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches.
For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan