56 
MOBY DICK; OR 
that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Quee- 
queg took his last long dive. 
Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think 
that he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous 
Societies. He only asked for water — fresh water — something to wipe 
the brine off ; that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and lean- 
ing against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed 
to be saying to himself — “It’s a mutual, joint-stock world, in all merid- 
ians. We cannibals must help these Christians.” 
CHAPTER XIV 
NANTUCKET 
Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, 
after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. 
Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real 
corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, 
more lonely than the Eddystone Lighthouse. Look at it — a mere hil- 
lock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There is 
more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute 
for blotting-paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have 
to plant weeds there, they don’t grow naturally; that they import Can- 
ada thistles; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a 
leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about 
like bits of the true cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools 
before their houses, to get Under the shade in summer time; that one 
blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day’s walk a prairie ; 
that they wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snowshoos; 
that they are so shut up, belted about, every way enclosed, surrounded, 
and made an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and 
tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of 
sea turtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no 
Illinois. 
Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was 
settled by the red men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle 
swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant 
