86 
MOBY DICK; OR 
CHAPTER XX 
ALL ASTIR 
A day or two passed^ and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. 
Hot only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming 
on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, every- 
thing betokened that the ship’s preparations were hurrying to a close. 
Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam 
keeping a sharp lookout upon the hands : Bildad did all the purchasing 
and providing at the stores ; and the men employed in the hold and on 
the rigging were working till long after nightfall. 
On the day following Queequeg’s signing the articles, word was 
given at all the inns where the ship’s company were stopping, that their 
chests must he on board before night, for there was no telling how soon 
the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps, 
resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they al- 
ways give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail for 
several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be done, and 
there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod 
was fully equipped. 
Every one knows what a multitude of things — beds, saucepans, 
knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what 
not, are indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with 
whaling, which necessitates a three-years’ housekeeping upon the wide 
ocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. 
And although this *also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any 
means to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great 
length of the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the pros- 
ecution of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the 
remote harbours usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of 
all ships, whaling vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, 
and especially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which 
the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare 
spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare everything, almost, but a 
spare captain and duplicate ship. 
