THE WHITE WHALE 
31 
ing sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth 
called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Enter- 
ing, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors’ wives 
and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the 
shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting 
apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and in- 
communicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these 
silent island's of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble 
tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the 
pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not 
pretend to quote: — 
SACRED 
To the Memory 
of 
JOHN TALBOT, 
Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard. 
Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, 
November 1st, 1836. 
THIS TABLET 
Is erected to his Memory 
BY HIS SISTER. 
SACRED 
To the Memory 
of 
ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, 
NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, 
AND SAMUEL GLEIG, 
Forming one of the boats’ crews 
OF 
THE SHIP ELIZA, 
Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, 
On the Off-shore Ground in the 
PACIFIC, 
December 31st, 1839. 
THIS MARBLE 
Is here placed by their surviving 
SHIPMATES. 
