Moby Dick

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journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much more than three
days' journey across from the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast.
How is that?

But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within that
short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by the
way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage through
the whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up the
Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete
circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris
waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to
swim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of Good Hope
at so early a day would wrest the honour of the discovery of that great
headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make
modern history a liar.

But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his